you girls are really great. i love all the advice and hearing all the things that everyone is trying. flowershop lady...you seem very knowledgeable, and you never really replied to the main question...does hpv ever go away?? i love jamiegirls thought that im young and not to think of myself as getting older, and actually i do. i have to remind myself of my age all the time. but i do know that my immune system is changing, so i stay on gaurd about that. the girls that mentioned fears of having it in their 20's and it coming back 10-20 years later is a heavy thought. when i told my family of my news last year i had several of the young women in my life come forward (that had always kept it silent) and talk about their fears. have any of you ever been to the national conference?
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thanks for all the info
- By DreamWings
- Posted June 16, 2009 at 9:33 pm · 1 reply
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- By corellin
- Posted June 17, 2009 at 2:34 am
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Hi DreamWings -- I went to the National conference last year, and it was great. Extremely well organized. Knowledgeable speakers. And -- a great chance to mingle with other women who have had similar experiences and to make contacts. If you have the time & money, it's definitely worth it.
RE does HPV ever go away. Researchers disagree about whether HPV can completely clear your system or remains with you forever. HPV affects the basal cell layer of your genital epithelium, which is possibly a long-lived reservoir for HPV. It can affect the genital epithelium in a lot of different places -- anus, vulva, vagina, cervix and there's no way to really know which cells are affected. There are also different types of HPV. Some types, such as HPV16, tend to be multi-focal and seem to cause more problems in more places. Other types may be more benign and less likely to ever cause a problem or re-activate.
But for practical purposes, we need to know that HPV could still be residing in our cells somewhere, so that means we need to be vigilant (although hopefully not terrified, because we don't want to compromise our immune systems with worry).
Even if HPV is in our cells somewhere, it's not always at the same stage. If it's dormant, then it's not likely to be causing damage. And, if it's dormant, it's not thought to be contagious, although no one knows for sure.
Also, HPV is more likely to cause damage in places that have a transformation zone -- such as the cervix. So if you have a procedure, such as a LEEP or cone which removes a large part of the transformation zone, it's very possible the HPV virus itself was removed from the area of the excision (since those procedures remove cells all the way to the basal layer). Then perhaps there are no more spots on the cervix that are
affected -- although there might still be a spot outside the excision area.
So maybe if the cervix is clear, you might have a spot or two left in the vagina where HPV is dormant. But since the vagina is less susceptible to developing disease, those dormant cells may be less likely to ever cause a problem there. So it is possible to be treated or to clear HPV and never be affected by it again.
And... think of HPV like chicken pox -- although viruses are all very different so it's hard to compare. But once a person has had chicken pox, it remains in their system forever. But you wouldn't say that once a person has chicken pox, they always have chicken pox, because they are not showing any evidence of disease, nor are they contagious. 80% will never have another symptom related to chicken pox, but about 20% may develop shingles later in life.
Supposedly with HPV, you develop immunity to the virus over time, so your body can suppress the infection. It's possible that it might re-activate, but we don't know how often this happens. People who seem to have a "reactivation" later in life may have been positive for an active infection all along but only developed abnormal tissues much later in life (since HPV testing hasn't been around that long). So we may think it "recurred" or suddenly "reactivated", but maybe it was active all along and we just didn't know. Again, there's a lot we don't know.
One thing we do know -- if a person is persistently testing positive for HPV, then there's a much higher likelihood that dysplasia will develop or already is present (and perhaps not detected by pap or colposcopy). But if HPV test is negative, then a person has a very low chance of developing abnormalities for the next two or three years -- unless they're exposed to a new strain.
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