HPV Treatments
Home Remedies to Never Try
Look, when it comes to hand warts, warts on your elbows, your knees, the soles of your feet, you can go ahead and cry whatever crazy concoction you may have read about on the internet. A few of those home remedies are sort of effective, and most of them don’t work, but you at least don’t stand to hurt yourself in the process of self-medicating your HPV infection.
But… when it comes to genital HPV, we can only recommend, in good conscience, real medical attention. Still, if you insist on getting your HPV treatment advice from the big book of home remedies or some such, we urge you to at least consider the following… and strike them right off the list of possible home remedies…
Foodstuffs
One of the more popular home remedies for common warts is to apply certain things from the kitchen to the infected area. You can tape a piece of garlic to a wart, dip it in vinegar, or soak it in salt water. Surprisingly, some of this stuff kind of actually works. Foods with incredibly high acidic content do, in fact, have what it takes to burn away at warts.
How are warts removed?
A word of warning: This article focuses on the methods employed by doctors and over the counter remedies to remove warts. If the very suggestion of using scissors on a wart makes you squeamish, you may want to skip this one.
That said, most HPV infections will clear up on their own. You don’t need to go see a doctor or even buy any ointments or treatments to remove a wart. If you eat healthy, take in plenty of vitamins, sunlight, and exercise, your immune system, nine times out of ten, will get rid of your wart for you within one or two weeks.
The problem only occurs when a wart infection is persistent, when it just won’t go away, or keeps coming back. That is when you should start looking into over the counter medication. When over the counter wart treatment does not work, that’s when the doctor comes in. You don’t need to jump right into wart removal. If you can get rid of your wart by eating a little better, there’s no need to waste time on a doctor visit, as warts are not really a serious health risk. Some forms of HPV are certainly dangerous, but, even with genital warts, there are no recorded instances of visible warts leading to serious illness or cancer. The HPV types that lead to further health complications usually don’t have any visible symptoms.
So, with that in mind, if nutrition has failed you, here are some of your options:
What to do if you contract HPV
The most important step to dealing with HPV, or human papilloma virus, is prevention. If you’re having sex with a new partner, and you have not yet had STD tests conducted for both parties, always, always, always use a condom. A condom does not guarantee, 100%, that no viruses will be passed from partner to partner, but condoms which have been properly tested, and applied correctly, do work almost all of the time.
Another form of prevention would be the vaccine. The HPV vaccine is something of a medical miracle, really. Tens of thousands of women die every year thanks to cervical cancer resulting from an HPV infection. With the vaccine, we can put a dent in that number. However, even if you have been vaccinated, you should always practice safe sex, as HPV isn’t the only sexually transmitted disease that you have to watch out for.
That said, if you do contract HPV, there are a few steps you should take…
Contact your Doctor
Genital wart treatment
If you have contracted a strain of HPV that has led to genital warts, the first thing you should do is count yourself amongst the lucky ones.
That sounds totally crazy, but think about it: The strains of HPV which lead to genital warts do not lead to cancer. The HPV strains which lead to cervical cancer, in fact, almost never show any visible symptoms of infection, and can usually only be detected by a pap smear.
So count your blessings, and then talk to your doctor about treating genital warts, because, sure, you don’t have cancer, but the sooner you can get rid of genital warts, the better.
Now, keep in mind, there is no real quick and easy cure for HPV. All we have is ways to treat the symptoms. Being a virus, HPV cannot simply be killed off by medicine.
When it comes to the treatment of genital warts, you have a number of options, thankfully. Your doctor may recommend or prescribe one, or you may be given a choice.
Talking with your Doctor about HPV
Whether you believe that you have contracted HPV or not, it’s very important to talk about HPV, or the human papilloma virus, with your doctor. This is true even if you’re not sexually active, as HPV is not, strictly, a sexually transmitted disease.
If you’re concerned about HPV, read up on it on your own time, but don’t be afraid to ask your doctor to clarify things for you or to give you more specific advice for prevention.
Getting over the embarrassment
If you’re currently dealing with an HPV infection, don’t be reluctant to talk to your doctor about genital warts treatments and genital warts removal and how to discourage outbreaks, get all the genital warts info and information on HPV you can. Remember that this is the first and most important step to talking with your doctor about an HPV infection: Don’t be embarrassed.
There are some unfortunate misconceptions that plague HPV sufferers in certain circles. Most obvious of which is, of course, that anyone suffering from genital HPV must be a “person of poor moral fibre”, but there are just as many misconceptions regarding common hand warts, etcetera. Such as that only unsanitary people get warts, that frogs are the main cause of hand warts, and all kinds of crazy things like that.
Treating HPV
Sadly there is still no HPV treatment yet available, no HPV cure. There are, however, treatment and therapy methods for its conditions. There is no way to get rid of HPV outright, but there are ways to reduce the appearance of warts and make dealing with HPV more comfortable.
Over the Counter
Of course, most warts will disappear on their own, given time. If you’d rather not wait, there are several over-the-counter products which will help to speed up the process and make warts go away faster. The most popular wart removal products would include…
• Compound W
• Dr. Scholl’s pads, discs and liquids
Recent Breakthroughs in Treating HPV
We still don’t have a cure for the human papilloma virus, but some recent breakthroughs have made prevention a lot easier. Perhaps the most major recent breakthrough is the advent of a genital HPV vaccine.
As you may or may not know, there are several types of genital HPV. Only a few types lead to genital warts, which, as ugly and uncomfortable as they are, are actually not dangerous and may leave nothing but some unfortunate scar tissue. Others actually cause no symptoms at all, but some can lead to cancer; cancer of the anus, the cervix, the penis, the vagina or the vulva. Even though most HPV is relatively benign, the risk of cancer should be enough motivation for anyone to practice as much prevention as seems necessary, and that’s exactly why this vaccine is so important.
The Catch
The vaccine is most effective in preventing HPV when given to boys and girls well before sexual activity with partners begins. This places the ideal age for vaccine recipients between 9 and 12 years of age.