“Longevity of HPV Virus”
Hi there, I got HPV genital warts almost 4 years ago, I had to go for a few initial treatments to a clinic to get the warts burned off, but other than that I’ve had no sight/symptoms of them since. Is there still a chance they can flare up and show up at any time? I was reading something that says after 2 years you are HPV- free and some say it’s a lifelong thing. What is the answer?
Female
4 Answers
HPV vaccination with Gardasil is recommended even for those who have had previous warts. This will assist in prevention of infection and cervical cancer. The only way to tell that you are HPV free is a Pap smear and examination. Unlike herpes infections HPV can be cured and prevention is by avoidance of sexual contact with infected individuals. Condoms are not always completely preventive if warts are outside of the genital skin.
Your immune system can suppress HPV, but the virus can recur.
Your immune system will dictate whether you will get lessons or not
This is a great question, but also difficult to be specific. In general, HPV is a virus that spreads via contact. In other words a cell with HPV can spread the HPV only to the cells which surround it. Thus if there are no cells with HPV on your skin, there will be no warts. However if there is HPV in a cell, it may be dormant and not active. So even though you currently do not have a wart, the potential to activate the HPV and have a wart resurface is still present. Unfortunately, there is no way to know exactly which cells have hpv and which no do not. Wart "treatment" is imprecise and cannot give you any guarantee.
