GF says doctor says she got HPV less than 30 days ago....?

A few facts, i have been 100% faithful, and I think she has too. We slept together for the first time in April, it is now August obviously, we have been sleeping together a little less than 5 months. My GF got a PAP Smear 2 weeks ago, and she got the results last week, she tested positive for abnormal cells, the nurse told her from the high risk version of HPV. She went to the doctor today for her biopsy. Her appt was at 9am, by 9:20 she was on her way to work, and pissed off at me. The doctor told her she had gotten HPV less than 30 days prior, i assume by looking at it????? Why is he so sure it was less than 30 days? What is going on? Is the biopsy really that quick? I cant be tested for it,so i could havein fact given it to her, when we met in April, but i would have gotten it before i met her. Why is the doctor so sure she got it less than 30 days ago, without any test results? What is the accuracy of those tests? Can HPV be dormant?

Your GF's Dr is an idiot! There is no way he can determine how long she's had HPV in her system. This virus can lay dormant for many years before any symptoms appear. Some people never get warts from it. You most likely have the virus also, because you've been exposed to it. Sit down with her and do some reading on the virus!

sounds to me like she is lying and she has had it and mabey wants to make it like you gave it to her so she isnt embarrassed about having an std???

Yes - HPV can lie dormant, so I don't see how 30 days can come into it.

I contracted HPV and ended up having to get LEEP surgery because I had precancerous cell development in my cervix. I asked my doctor about it and she told me there was virtually no way to know (at least not without exhaustive and pointless testing of the sample) to tell me how long ago I had contracted it. I was about 20 at the time and she said it could even have been my first sexual partner, back when I was 17.

I am not sure what your girlfriend's doctor said to her but to give her a time frame like that seems irresponsible and odd to me.

If it is any consolation most people end up being exposed to HPV eventually. It sucks but there is not a whole lot you can do since even condoms can't really protect you. They gynecologist who did my LEEP surgery told me that he just assumes every sexually active patient he sees has HPV. That is how common it is.

There is absolutely no way than an MD can determine with certainty when someone contracted any STD. Even with STDs that progress to serious problems such as pelvic inflammatory disease (e.g. chlamydia) or that eventually manifest as neurological issues (e.g. syphilis), the physician can only determine that they are in their later stages and the infection must've been present for awhile.

With average, regular infections (e.g. chlamydia) doctors and patients can only guess at the time frame of infection based on the patient's medical and sexual history. Sometimes it's really easy to know when you got something like chlamydia if you were tested 6 months ago and weren't sleeping with anyone, started sleeping with someone a month ago, and now suddenly have it.

BUT - HPV is different. Certainly if this is her first HPV test the doctor has no way whatsoever to determine when she was exposed to it. But even if she had been tested before, her MD would still have no way of knowing for sure when she was exposed because even when a person has HPV, she won't necessarily test positive for it. The HPV test is not a foolproof one - meaning even if she tested negative on her last test, slept with noone else since then, and then just recently start sleeping with you, it would still be impossible to tell when she got infected.

Check out this abstract from a medical journal on HPV. It says that the rate of false negatives (i.e. when a patient actually DOES have HPV but the test still comes back negative) is as high as 14% to 30%, depending on the specific testing method that is used. That means between 1 in 7 to 1 in 3 people actually have HPV and can still test negative.

http://www.acta-cytol.com/toc/auto_abstr...

It's also worth mentioning that most likely nothing will ever result from her HPV infection. Most women under the age of 30 are able to completely clear the infection - and thus test negative again - within a couple years of exposure.

But if she's going to treat herself for possible cervical changes now, tell her to do a lot of research beforehand. Doctors frequently treat cervical changes differently depending on the patient's socioeconomic status - if they have a woman with very minor changes but who is transient with no medical insurance, they'll treat very aggressively immediately. But the same condition in a woman with a stable job, good medical compliance, and insurance might just be monitored for several years. I personally am much more in favor of a conservative course that involves as little invasion into the cervix as possible. Don't take the advice of a general internist - make sure she's at least seeing a gynecologist, or even a gynecological oncologist if she wants a truly comprehensive opinion.

Also read this pdf for general information on HPV and cervical cancer:
http://www.cancerscreening.gov.au/intern...

ok, before you guys go getting all pissy at each other...HPV is a disease that women get on their cervix. yes, you could be the carrier. It's not an STD per se, but something that some men have and wouldn't know about it. There isn't really a way to diagnose male HPV. Doesn't matter if you were faithful 100%. He can probably tell by the growth pattern of the HPV cells. During one of those biopsies, they look at your cervix. Believe me, this is not a pleasant experience. Yes, you could have been with her and it just showed up now. and no, you wouldn't have gotten it before you met her, chances are you had it all along. Men don't "just get HPV". Men are carriers of HPV and never know.

I found all this out because I was diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells on my cervix, but it turned out not to be HPV and it turned out not to be cancer...jsut abnormal cells.

There is NO WAY to say when you got infection with HPV. I was infected and cervical changes started about a year and a half after doctor told me I had an infection. It is very individual in progression and majority of people resolve infection without any changes to cervix. And also it depends on specific virus type. Some are more agressive than the others. I was a part of the Yahoo group for people with HPV for more than a year and NEVER heard anything like this from anyone on the site. Maybe what doctor meant was that changes to a cervix just started showing up.