1. Most commonly, HPV – the human papillomavirus – causes common warts. Many people, at some time in their lifetime, will suffer from this usually harmless, but sometimes embarrassing skin condition. These warts appear on the hands and feet, generally. The strain of HPV that causes common warts can be spread fairly easily, from shared surfaces in public showers and restrooms. It is wise to take precautions such as wearing sandals in a public shower to avoid contact with the shared floor surfaces. Should you contract a case of common warts, however, your doctor can help you get rid of the infection.
   
   More serious are the strains of HPV that cause genital warts or other conditions. These are referred to collectively as “Genital HPV” infections. It is believed that currently, about 20 million people in the United States alone carries at least one strain of genital HPV, most without knowing that they are a carrier. These strains, while being silent for years in the human body, can affect you in these ways:
2. You may develop genital warts from the HPV virus. Although many people do not develop surface warts on the genital area, or never notice it, other people do have embarrassing and uncomfortable lesions. Although there are treatments for these, there is not a cure – this means that these lesions can be very persistent, seeming to go away with medication only to come back again and again.
3. Because many people are carriers of HPV without knowing it, they can unknowingly pass the HPV infection on to others. In women, contracting HPV can eventually lead to cervical cancer. About 70% of cervical cancers are believed to begin with HPV infection – usually many years earlier! It is important for women to be screened regularly for cervical cancer, during the annual exam with a PAP test. The earlier cervical cancers are caught, the better chance of successful treatment and cure. Two vaccines currently exist on the market for women, which have been shown to prevent several strains of HPV infection that lead to cervical cancer. If you are sexually active, or if you are a parent or guardian of a teen who is sexually active, you may wish to ask your doctor about these vaccines.
4. If you are a male, you are not immune to the affects of HPV infection! First, you can be a carrier and infect any partner with whom you come into sexual contact. Secondly, it is thought that some forms of penile cancer are related to HPV infection. If you are a gay male, you may also be susceptible to anal cancers related to HPV.
5. Anyone who engages in oral sexual contact can also acquire HPV. This can in rare instances lead to cancers of the throat, neck, and head. It can also lead to a respiratory infection that can become a very serious condition.

Again, there is no cure for HPV. But you can keep yourself safe by practicing safe sex, being educated with current information on the disease, and having regularly health checkups.

But the good news is that the vast majority of the 250 recognised strains of HPV cause no symptoms, signs or illness and our immune system works to destroy the infection with no side effects. However, medical researchers have isolated 15 strains of the virus that can lead to serious health risks.

When it comes to the consequences of HPV, men are relatively fortunate because the most serious strains of HPV can lead to cervical cancer and death in women. Every year around 3000 to 4000 women die from cervical cancer, and in 70% of these cases, the cancer is directly related to HPV.

What are the Dangers of HPV?

In the vast majority of cases, men can become infected with HPV and show no signs or symptoms. However, simply showing no symptoms of infection doesn’t mean that you aren’t carrying one of the strains of HPV that can lead to cervical cancer in a woman. You just don’t know it.

So it pays to have regular check-ups with your medical practitioner every time you begin a new relationship. This may sound over-the-top and unnecessary, but how would you feel if you learned that you inadvertently passed on one of the deadly strains of HPV to your partner that resulted in cervical cancer?

Fortunately, genital HPV won’t kill you if you are male, but it can be very embarrassing, painful and unsightly if you contract one of the strains of HPV that results in genital warts.

Remember, every time you have sex with a new partner, you are having sex with every partner she has ever had and every partner they have ever had… scary, huh?

What are the Symptoms of HPV?

If you have detected any abnormalities including scaly or itchy patches or growths in your genital area, you need to get checked out immediately. HPV testing for men is a relatively simple procedure.

Genital warts tend to appear in clusters, like miniature cauliflowers. They can be quite small in size or spread across a wide area from your genitals through to your anus. The area surrounding the warts is often painful and the warts are often itchy.

If you are diagnosed with genital warts, your physician can recommend topical HPV treatments that relieve the symptoms until the infection has passed.

How to Prevent HPV Infections

You may have the genital warts virus and simply not know it. Even if you’ve never had an outbreak of genital warts, but particularly if you have, the strain of HPV that results in genital warts or a number of other serious conditions, including cancer, may be dormant in your system.

So always practicing safe sex is mandatory if you want to protect yourself from HPV and also so you can prevent spreading the infection to your partner. The risk that you could unwittingly pass the strains of HPV that lead to cervical cancer in women cannot be stressed enough.

To avoid coming into contact with HPV, men need to wear a latex condom when having sex. Not only does a condom help protect you from unwanted pregnancy, it also prevents you from catching HPV, as well as preventing you from passing it on. And HPV is only one of a number of sexually transmitted diseases that can infect you. None of them are pretty and all of them will have a dramatic impact on the state of your sexual health with all your future partners, for as long as you continue to be sexually active – and for most of us that means the rest of our lives.

Shocked? Don’t be. More than half of all adults have had “common warts” at one point or other, warts that affect the hands, feet, elbows or knees. That’s why they call them common warts. They’re uncomfortable, but they’re really no big deal.

As for genital HPV, believe it or not, there are actually several types of HPV that affect the genitals, but which do not lead to warts, do not lead to cervical cancer, and are basically harmless in every way, shape and form.

To list the HPV statistics in different parts of the world …

Australia

Around four percent of men and women in Australia have been diagnosed with genital warts. Common warts are pretty much just a common the world over, with more than half of adults having had hand warts or plantar warts at one time or another. This amounts to somewhere around seventy thousand cases.

New Zealand

New Zealand has an estimated 14,683 active HPV cases at present.

United States

In the US, genital HPV is actually quite common, with somewhere around 5.5 million new genital HPV infections occurring every year. Most of these are harmless, though genital warts account for about one third of all new STD infections each year, with around 20 million men and women supposed to have some form of genital HPV at any given time.

UK

In the UK, there are an estimated 221,583 active genital HPV cases at any given time.

China

China is, by population, the largest country in the world, and has nearly five million active HPV cases at a given time.

In Developing Countries

In developing, or third world countries, there have been major efforts to combat HPV related cervical cancer, but nonetheless, around a quarter million women die of the disease every year, with the majority of these deaths occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.

It’s hard to ascertain much from these statistics except for the simple fact that HPV spreads everywhere. Whether you have a modernized hospital system or not, HPV will find a way in.

It is notable that developed countries tend to see fewer deaths as a result of HPV related cervical cancer than do developing countries. Efforts have been made to combat these trends and educate those in developing countries on safe sex practices and general health considerations, but it has been an uphill battle met with political and ideological obstacles.

If you’d like to help, there are a few things you can do. We can’t all join the Red Cross and move to Sierra Leone, but each and every one of us can write angry letters. Tell the Pope not to butt in when it comes to distributing condoms in Africa, tell your political that we need to put more effort towards fighting disease in third world countries.

And of course, you need to practice safe sex at home, as well.

Other types of genital HPV may lead to genital cancers, such as cervical cancer, while others may lead to no symptoms whatsoever. Luckily, the types that lead to anogenital warts do not lead to cancer.

That said, the presence of anogenital warts should not be taken as a sign that you do not have an HPV type that can lead to cancer. Multiple HPV types can affect an individual at once, and it is entirely possible to have both anogenital warts and developing cervical cancer from two or more different strains of genital HPV.

Anogenital warts tend to spread only through direct sexual contact. It is possible for anogenital warts to spread to the mouth, though it is somewhat rare.

One common misconception is that HPV is only contagious when an infection is active. This isn’t the case. In fact, HPV can spread for even months after a wart infection clears up. For this reason, we strongly urge that you consult your physician before considering yourself ready to have sex again, and we insist that you use a latex condom during sex.

If you do contract genital warts, they can sometimes be easily identified from a “layman’s” perspective on sight, but other times may only become visible through some medical testing. If you do suspect that you have contracted anogenital warts, make sure to consult your doctor before taking action, lest you wind up treating a pimple or an ingrown hair with an over the counter genital wart remover.

Do not use home remedies on anogenital warts. There are a number of home remedies that work like a charm on common warts on the hands and feet, but your hands and feet are not as sensitive as your genitals. There are some over the counter and prescription treatments for anogenital warts that tend to be highly effective, so there’s no reason to try and treat anogenital warts with slices of garlic, dabs of vinegar, or something you found in a home pedicure kit.

Again, anogenital warts are uncomfortable, but do not lead to cancer. That said, women should make absolutely certain to have their regular pap smear conducted, as this is the only way to identify the types of HPV which show no visible symptoms, but which can lead to cervical cancer. And as always, safe sex should be practiced, in order to prevent contracting or spreading genital HPV.

Because anogenital HPV strains can lie dormant in one’s body for years without showing any visible symptoms, it is possible to see genital warts occur even a decade or longer after contracting the disease. It is also possible to contract anogenital wart causing HPV without ever seeing any visible symptoms. This is worth making a bit more public, as dormant HPV suddenly showing symptoms years after infection has led to a lot of distrust in marriages. Genital warts suddenly appearing are not always a sign of infidelity.

If you do have anogenital warts, just make sure to go through the proper steps. Talk to your doctor, and treat the warts medically.

However, there is a link between HPV and smoking cigarettes. In 2001, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that smoking cigarettes can contribute significantly to the risk of infections with cancer causing strains of HPV escalating to cervical cancer.

Smoking increases your risk of cancer, no matter what. Not all smokers exposed to HPV will develop LSIL, or Low-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions, the condition which leads to cervical cancer, but smoking certainly doesn’t help matters, either.

If you smoke, quit. Even if you don’t contract HPV, cigarette smoking can still increase your likelihood of developing cervical cancer (HPV is to blame for about 70% of cervical cancer, but that leaves more than 3,000 cervical cancer victims who do not have HPV).

Besides increasing risk of cancer, smoking does harm the immune system. This means you’re more susceptible to HPV, the flu, and even the common cold when you smoke.

Here are two things to consider:

Be Safe

Practice safe sex. Remember that even with a condom, HPV can be passed on, so know your sex partner. It’s a good idea to get an STD test if you’re not sure about yourself or your partner or partners. Practicing monogamy is also a good idea, as studies have shown that your risk for contracting HPV jumps up by about 1000% with each new sex partner (to each their own, but consider your health).

There is, actually, an HPV vaccine on the market for high risk forms of HPV. Ask your doctor about it.

Don’t Smoke!

If you smoke, you already know it’s bad for you. Quitting isn’t easy, but it’s true that, if you smoke, it will kill you. You’ll be on edge while going through nicotine withdrawal, but it sure beats lung cancer.

Some tips for quitting smoking…

Cut Back

If you’ve already tried quitting cold turkey and it doesn’t seem to be working, start cutting back. Pay attention to how many cigarettes you smoke in a day and start reducing that number. If you’re a pack-a-day smoker, only allow yourself to smoke fifteen cigarettes between the time you wake up and go to sleep. The next day, cut down to ten, then remove a cigarette or two from your daily routine every day until you’ve weaned yourself off of nicotine dependency well enough to throw your last cigarette away and not feel like digging it out of the trash an hour later.

Satisfy your Oral Fixation

For many smokers, it’s the fidgeting aspect that keeps them coming back. Try chewing on toothpicks, chewing gum, or eating sunflower seeds.

Cigars and Pipes

Chewing tobacco will give you jaw cancer, so don’t even think about it. Cigars and pipe tobacco, however, are significantly safer. In moderation, they do still pose some risk of developing mouth or throat cancer, but, because you don’t inhale the smoke, there’s little to no risk of developing lung cancer. Don’t think this is a free ticket to smoke; studies have shown that there is some risk. If you smoke something like eight cigars a day, that’s as bad as smoking two packs of unfiltered every day. Smoking anything at all isn’t really recommended, per se, but if you can’t seem to kick your smoking habit, tasting the smoke and spitting it out is a much safer way to get that nicotine fix than inhaling clouds of tar and poison into your chest. If you can switch to cigars, cigars are a lot easier to quite than cigarettes, being much less addictive, while still giving a nicotine buzz.

That said, here are some of the other lesser known facts about HPV…

There is a vaccine!

Not really a fact about HPV per se, but it is, nonetheless, a fact that should be shouted from every rooftop. Some of the more fanatical alternative health people are distrusting of the HPV vaccine, but any criticism you hear is simply misinformed. The vaccine does not protect against all HPV strains, but it does protect against the high risk strains, such as the ones which can lead to cervical cancer. A regular pap smear is still in order, but the vaccine can, if administered early enough, eliminate the risk of contracting an HPV strain which leads to cervical cancer. It has drawn some criticism from certain, somewhat misinformed but well meaning conservatives, as well. The vaccine needs to be administered during puberty for best results, and some see this as encouraging adolescent sex. This is silly, though. It’s in the hands of the parents to teach about having sex responsibly, the vaccine is only there to save lives.

70% of HPV infections go away on their own

When most people get a wart, they want to head straight for the drug store to grab some remover. There’s no need. Or at least, seventy percent of the time, there’s no need. Even genital warts, most of the time, will clear up on their own if you simply eat right and practice good hygiene.

About half of all adults are carrying some form of HPV right now

This one may really surprise you. Again, most forms of HPV clear up quickly enough, and in many cases, the HPV lays dormant for an indefinite period of time. It’s possible that you may have about a dozen types of HPV right now, and that you’ll never know.

Dormant HPV can rear its head later in life

Hopefully, this should save a marriage or two: It’s not uncommon for one member of a monogamous couple to suddenly show signs of genital HPV without any infidelity having taken place. You can contract HPV today and not have any genital warts to show for it until twenty years from now. Genital warts are not necessarily a sign of a recent transmission of HPV.

It is possible, but rare, to transmit HPV during childbirth

It’s not common, but there have been a few reported cases of HPV being passed from mother to child during birth.

HPV has 250 strains

You cannot contract hand warts by making skin contact with genital warts. It just doesn’t really happen, because common or hand warts and genital warts are two different strains. It’s kind of like using different formats of discs on your computer: A floppy disk won’t work in a CD drive, and genital warts won’t infect any area beyond the genitals. Genital warts can affect the area directly around the genitals, but you cannot catch genital HPV strains on your hands or feet or anything like that. Some forms of HPV may show up just about anywhere on the body, but most only affect certain areas.

If you want to know whether or not you have contracted a genital form of HPV, consider a few factors:

How many sexual partners have you had?

It’s said that, every time you are with a new sexual partner, your risk for HPV increases tenfold. This is no exaggeration. In medical terms, every time you come into sexual contact with someone, you are having second hand sexual contact with every one of their past partners. Even if you feel like you’re being nosy, it’s a good idea to talk with any potential sexual partners about their own history before engaging in intercourse. And, of course, always, always use a condom. HPV can still be transmitted with a condom, as genital HPV affects the entire area around the genitals, and not just the reproductive organs themselves, and not all of that area is covered by a latex condom.

When was the last time you were tested?

Getting an HPV test isn’t a one time thing. If you’ve had a new sexual partner since your last test, there’s no guarantee that you’re still safe. Every time you’ve been with another sexual partner, it’s a good idea to get tested again.

On the other hand, if you and your monogamous partner have already been tested and you know that you’re safe, you don’t have to test again. Unless you consider the possibility of infidelity, there is no real risk of having contracted HPV without some one-in-a-million occurrence having happened. Genital HPV is almost invariably only transmitted through sexual contact. It’s highly unlikely that you would contract HPV from a car seat or trying on pants at the clothing store.

What if I’ve been vaccinated?

The imperative for the HPV vaccine is largely thanks to the risk of cervical cancer developing from certain strains of HPV. However, the vaccine only protects against high risk forms of HPV, and so, a regular pap smear is still in order, as would be an HPV test. You simply cannot know for certain unless you A) Are, in fact, one hundred percent certain with no room for doubt that not a single one of your sexual partners have ever had HPV (in other words, you have notarized test results from every one of them), or B) have been tested, yourself.

There is no way to guess at it, no way to simply talk to your sexual partners and be one hundred percent certain that they are HPV free. Even if your current partner is monogamous with you, and has only had one previous partner, and that one previous partner only had one previous partner, if that first partner’s first partner had HPV, there is a very good chance that you will contract it, as well. There is simply no way to know without having an STD or HPV test conducted.

Considering that 70% of all cervical cancer can be blamed on HPV, there is simply no excuse not to be tested, not to have your regular pap smear conducted, and not to be careful.

But here’s the bad news: The strains of HPV which can lead to cancer do not show any visible symptoms.

According to the American Cancer Society, around eleven thousand women will develop cervical cancer this year, with just under four thousand of these cases ending in death. Cancer causing strains of HPV are to blame for a significant portion of these cases, perhaps as much as 70% or higher.

There are around two hundred or two hundred and fifty different strains of HPV, and luckily, only a small number of these (around fifteen) are considered high risk or can possibly lead to cervical cancer, including HPVs 31, 16, 45, and 18. Because these types do not actually show any visible HPV symptoms, it is absolutely imperative that all women have regular cancer screenings conducted. Luckily, the National Cervical Cancer Coalition estimates that around 89% of women do go in for regular screenings. If you fall into the 11% that do not, get off your butt, and call your doctor. This is too important to put off until you get around to it.

And, of course, even though visible genital warts do not lead to cancer, they don’t mean that you don’t have a more dangerous strain of HPV. Multiple HPV types can exist within the same person’s body, so regular tests need to be conducted, no matter what.

SELF DIAGNOSIS OF VISIBLE STRAINS OF HPV

Luckily, we know what warts look like. It’s easy to spot a hand wart or a genital wart, most of the time. If you can see a wart, don’t worry. Even genital warts, as unsightly as they may be, almost never lead to any form of cancer.

Not all visible warts look exactly like, you know, warts, though, or at least not in the way we all know what warts look like. A number of strains can cause warts that don’t exactly stick out like a sore thumb.

Because they start small and eventually grow, it’s important to pay attention to your body. It’s weird, you use your hands for everything all day, but how often do you actually stop and look at your hands? Or your elbows for that matter, or even the bottom of your feet, or your genitals? You don’t need to sit down and inspect yourself for an hour every day, just take a look at your whole body the next time you shower. It’s said that nearly every person contracts some form of HPV at one point or another before they die, so it’s not entirely impossible that you might be developing plantar warts and not even know it.

It’d take too much space to list every possible type of wart, so just be on the look out for any out of the ordinary blemishes that can’t be chalked up to acne, moles, or minor bruises, etcetera.

If you catch a wart early, you can treat it right away. Most wart infections don’t actually need any professional medical attention. You can get an over the counter wart remover at nearly any drug store in the world. If you take a lot of vitamins and eat well to strengthen your immune system, you might even stop a wart in its tracks and prevent it from becoming any bigger.

When a wart infection becomes persistent, if it keeps recurring after treatment or it just won’t go away, that’s when it’s time to talk to a doctor and see what can be done. Fortunately, the actual diagnosing of warts is easy to do yourself, and, most of the time, so is treatment.

This misconception is one of the most common, and perhaps the most unfortunate. In some communities, people who contract HPV wind up feeling too ashamed to tell even their doctor, and this leads to HPV sufferers who never get the proper treatment because they’re too embarrassed to even admit that they contracted HPV.

The truth of the matter is that more than fifty percent of sexually active people will contract some form of sexually transmitted HPV sometime in their lives, and the causes of HPV can affect anyone. Luckily, most forms of HPV are relatively benign and may come and go without the infected person even knowing they’ve been infected. Other forms may lead to genital warts and even cervical cancer, but it is just plain ridiculous to allege that only promiscuous people or “workin’ girls” will become infected. You could have sex with only one partner your entire life and still contract a form of HPV.

You can spot HPV on sight alone

Many forms of HPV do not have any visible signs, including the types which can lead to cancer. HPV does not necessarily mean ‘genital warts’. In fact, genital warts, unsightly and uncomfortable as they are, do not typically lead to cancer at all, meaning that, yes they are unpleasant, but they are not considered “high risk”. The only way to know for sure if you are infected with HPV or not is to have HPV testing or STD testing conducted by medical professionals.

If the warts have been treated, HPV is not contagious

To be fair, while this might easily be chalked up to misunderstanding, the fact is that researchers aren’t quite sure. Many subjects are reluctant to talk about their sex lives with researchers, and this can make an HPV hard to track from partner to partner, so some of the details get a little murky and we can’t be 100% sure whether or not HPV can be transmitted when there are no genital warts.

It is generally believed that the human papillomavirus can be passed on whether it is showing visible genital warts symptoms of HPV or not, so while research is inconclusive, it is best not to risk it. Look into HPV vaccination, and always, always practice safe sex.

“My monogamous partner has venereal warts, they must’ve cheated on me!”

HPV statistics suggest that most people who are infected with HPV don’t’ even know it. HPV can be contracted, and then lie latent for weeks, months, years, or a person’s entire life, without showing any symptoms. It is entirely possible to contract HPV from a sexual partner even decades before meeting your current partner, and not see any genital warts or other symptoms until well into the monogamous relationship (or ever, for that matter). HPV is not a sign of infidelity, and the misconception that it is has, unfortunately, broken apart more than a few loving couples.

Conclusion…

Be informed. HPV affects billions of people, not just those who have casual sex. Everyone is at risk to some extent, and the only way to arm yourself is with the facts. Practice safe sex, read all the available information on HPV, and ask your doctor any questions you might have. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed, and don’t waste your time worrying about what misinformed people say.

Genital HPV is what you need to worry about.

Believe it or not, though, it’s not genital warts you have to look out for. Certainly you don’t want genital warts, but aside from the general unpleasantness of genital warts, they rarely lead to any further health complications, and can be treated with relative ease.

The most dangerous forms of genital HPV might not even show any visible symptoms. The most dangerous strains can lead to testicular cancer, cervical cancer, rectal cancer, and penile cancer, and might not even be detectable until the later stages.

Unfortunately, there is no real cure for any strain of HPV. We have all sorts of ointments, chemicals, and treatments to get rid of ugly warts, but HPV stands for Human Papilloma Virus, and as of right now, we still haven’t discovered an effective method for actually killing viruses.

Genital warts might not show up for weeks after the virus is contracted, but when they do show up, they will be taken care of by the body’s immune system pretty quickly about 90% of the time. Again, genital warts do not lead to cancer. The only strains of genital HPV that lead to cancer do not cause genital warts.

It is estimated that around half of the world’s population is infected with genital warts, right now, and that most people will actually contract the virus at some point in their lives. Luckily, most of these cases come and go without even showing any symptoms or escalating to cancer. This isn’t a Get Out of Jail Free card, though. If you have sex without protection or without getting yourself and your partner tested, you’re playing the odds. Because so many strains of genital HPV don’t even show any signs, you can’t rely on your ability to “spot” an infection in the form of venereal warts. The only way to keep yourself safe from STDs is to either always use protection, or have STD testing conducted on yourself, and every single one of your sexual partners.

Luckily, there is an HPV vaccine available. Tens of thousands of women die, every year, thanks to cervical cancer caused by an HPV infection, and if we can get enough people administering and signing up for the HPV vaccine, it may well be possible that nobody should ever have to die thanks to HPV.

But the vaccine has met some unfortunate controversy. The vaccine is most effective when administered around the time of puberty, and a group of ‘concerned citizens’ have taken it upon themselves to speak out against the vaccine, stating that it would give pubescent children “permission” to go out and have unprotected sex.

Raising sexually responsible people is the job of the parent, not the pharmacy companies. If we can save tens of thousands of lives, there is no reason to object to the HPV vaccine.