Hi, I recently discovered that I have HPV and I'm having a hard time accepting it. I really like this guy who I'm waiting for to come home from Iraq and I'm scared of his reaction when I tell him some day. Does it seem as serious and scary to others as I view it? I read that 75% of sexually active people have it so do most people see it as not a major obstruction in a relationship?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Loula

Hello loula,

You might benefit from visiting the relationship section of our HPV Web pages at http://www.ashastd.org/hpv/hpv_learn_relationships.cfm. These pages provide tips for talking with partners and cover the basics of HPV, including the questions partners often want answered.

Things to keep in mind include:

HPV is in fact very common, so much so that up to 75-80% of sexually active people are thought to have, or have had, a genital HPV infection.

Most cases don't result in visible symptoms or health complications and when symptoms (like warts or cervical cell changes) are detected, they are generally manageable.

It can take weeks, months, or even years after exposure to HPV before a diagnosis is made.

Clinical testing options for males are very limited.

Most HPV infections are suppressed or cleared naturally by the immune system, but there is no way to predict when this might occur for an individual, and no test to prove it for sure.

If you have any other questions, feel free to post again. Review some of the other posts on this board, too, about talking with partners.

All the best,
Fredo

_________________
ASHA Moderator

Thankyou so much for the post Fredo! It helped a lot. I have another question...can warts spread to other parts of my body like say to my hands or if my hands touched the warts and I touched my arm...can it spread that way?

Hi Loula.

From my understanding, you can not catch warts on your hands, etc., from touching your genital warts. Vice-a-Verse-a if you have warts say on your hands, feet, etc.. If you say have a wart on your hand, and touch yourself, you won't get genital warts that way. From what I've read, those warts (on hands, feet, etc.) are not caused by the same HPV as genital warts.

The types of HPV that cause genital warts are usually different from those causing warts on other body parts, such as the hands. People do not get genital warts by touching warts on their hands or feet.

I got that info from the link below which you may find useful in answering some questions:

http://www.ashastd.org/hpv/hpv_learn_warts.cfm

Loula,
I know that you scared to tell this guy bout you having HPV. After I found out that I had it, I was scared that no one else would ever want to be with me that I was going to be stuck with the guy that gave it to me. I have a friend that is in Iraq that I would email back and forth he told me that he didnt care what I had that he would be with me anyways. So maybe your guy will be the same.