Quote:
Originally Posted by crazykatie  When Herpes presents orally, either because of HSV1 or 2, the source is thought to be the nervous ganglia in the head area (the trigeminal ganglia) and not the ganglia at the base of the spine. For more information, check out: Genital Herpes
As I indicated, I presented only one theory as to why the condition becomes chronic. There are many theories as the exact reasons are not well understood.
For more information on infective responses: Immune Defenses
In my view, that the virus resides in a cell alone is not enough to explain the anti-bodies' inability to completely eradicate the disease. All viruses reside in cells. In my view, if residing in a cell were enough, no one would ever get over any virus. Neither the sacral nor trigeminal ganglia have the most robust circulation (particularly, lymphatic circulation). In my view, this could explain why this tissue is not as completely saturated by antibodies as are the nerve cells leading from the ganglia to the skin (where active virus cells are completely eradicated) when an outbreak occurs. I do not subscribe to the "cell does not express viral antigens" theory in the case of ganglia and HSV2 as I believe it has been established (in separate studies) that such is not the case with HSV2 in nervous system ganglia tissue.
But, why Herpes is chronic really wasn't the point of my posting. |
The difference is you body has no problem killing a skill cell or blood cell, but gets rather squirrely about killing non-regenerating nerve cells. The virus has found a safe home since the effect of the body eradicating the virus is worse than the virus itself.
Being one of my specialty areas is the head and neck, and I routinely need to deal with infections in said area, I'd expect to see more chronic hard to cure infections if your blood theory were true. I don't. While the exact blood supply of the terminal ganglia is very hard to work out due to the complex anatomy of the area, its more famous for the ample blood supply triggering such issues such as trigeminal neuralgia. The theory is that basically too much is being pushed through one foramen and the artery in the area when blood pressure increases causes pressure and therefore sensory pain signals from CN5. This is not the only possible cause of trigeminal neuralgia but it does seem to be the cause in many.
Herpes is just a special virus, it found a great place to hide, and gives us outbreaks long after the acute stage because it can. Herpes zoster, chicken pox, hides in the nerve roots and later comes out in some people to give them shingles, HSV-1 hides in the nerve roots and gives us cold sores and sometimes genital sores, HSV-2 hides in the nerve roots and gives us a more annoying genital sore and even oral sores.
I do need to look into the shingles vaccine, I have to wonder if there is some hope for a HSV-1/2 vaccine in the near future.