It is important to know what triggers a genital herpes infection because once someone has an infection with the herpes simplex virus, the virus is always in the body. After the infection is over, the virus travels deeper into the body along nerves to important nerve branching points called ganglia. While the virus is in the ganglia it's in an inactive, or latent, form.
The virus stays in this latent form until something triggers it to reactivate. Then it travels back down the nerve to the skin and causes another flare.
Even in people with normal immune systems, sometimes recurrences just spontaneously happen. However, the following are known triggers that can stimulate a recurrence:
- Physical stress
- Poor emotional coping style
- Persistent stressors for greater than 1 week
- Anxiety
- Fever
- Nerve damage
- Tissue damage from trauma or surgery
- A suppressed immune system
- Heat
- Cold
- Menstruation
- Other infections
- Fatigue
Sources:
Madkan, Vandana, et al. "Human Herpesviruses." Dermatology. 2nd. Ed. Jean Bolognia. New York: Mosby, 2008: 1199-1218.
Yeung-Yue, Kimberly. "Herpes Simplex Viruses 1 and 2." Dermatologic Clinics 20(2002): 249-266.
