Does the STD, HPV ever go away?

I am 35 and I contracted HPV, vaginal warts, when I was 18. (Have no idea what strain) I had them burned off. I soon married and stayed monogamous for 10+ years. Divorced and remarried. Before I remarried or had sex with my current husband, was tested, and they said it had gone away. Is this really possible? Have never had an abnormal Pap smear and have had four children with no problems. Any info. greatly appreciated. Thanks. :)

The truth is that the medical field doesn't know for sure if it is eradicated from the body or dormant. Its different from person to person. In your case I would say the virus is gone.

The virus will always be in your system, however it is possible that you will no longer have any breakouts.

I was 19 when I was diagnosed with HPV, had vaginal warts (mine were actually pre-cancerous) and had laser surgery to remove them. I'm now 31 and haven't had any problems since (all paps were clear and 2 healthy kids).

My understanding is that (unlike the herpes virus) as long as you don't have a break-out, you aren't contagious. However, I'd double check with your OB/GYN to make sure.

There is no FDA approved HPV test that tells us what HPV type (strain) we have. Most studies tells us 90% of all visual genital warts are of low risk HPV types 6 or 11. At the time of your HPV infection your virus was on the vulva鈥?the virus may have affected your cervix鈥ut it may not have. Low risk HPV types of the cervix seems to regress faster than high risk HPV types. Low risk HPV types may cause abnormal cell changes of the cervix but again they most often regress faster than high risk HPV types.

Our Pap smear is a sampling of cells of the cervix looking screening for cervical cancer; no vulva cells are taken. An HPV test is most often done only after abnormal cells of the cervix are found. The HPV test only screens for high risk HPV types. Once the virus is in low virual load it is not seen in any test. The HPV test looks for cells per unit.

Most people do build immunity to their acquire HPV types. No one can really tell us if the virus is gone or just in a sleeping stage not relpicating or producing abnormal overgrowth of tissue i.e wart or abnormal cell changes of the cervix.

HPV can reactivae many years down the road鈥?it may reactivate during pregnancy鈥?some people never have the virus reactivate after the first outbreak鈥?sadly since can鈥檛 really prove that we will never transmit the virus after we initially acquired it.


http://www.emedicinehealth.com/genital_w...


HPV can be contracted from one partner, remain dormant, and then later be unknowingly transmitted to another sexual partner

http://www.ashastd.org/learn/learn_hpv_w...