Other symptoms include pain when urinating, urethral or vagina discharge, and swollen lymph nodes. The first time you get sick you may get a headache, fever, chills and muscular weakness. After that, symptoms are likely to be less painful and only show up on the part of the body where you were first infected. One half to two-thirds of people infected with the virus will have no symptoms. If they appear, the first symptoms may be seen from 2 to 12 days after exposure.
People are most likely to transmit the virus when sores can be seen.
There is evidence, however, that a person with the virus may infect another person even when they have no symptoms. After the initial infection, the Herpes II virus lives inside your body, even though you may not have any symptoms. Symptoms may occur again, but how often varies from person to person. A drug called Acyclovir, given by mouth, injected into the vein, or in an ointment, reduces the pain and speeds the healing of primary herpes lesions. In the pill form, this treatment may shorten the amount of time that the person is sick, both the first time and in repeat outbreaks.