Do you think..?

I understand from everything i have read that 90% of women ‘clear’ hpv in 2 years. Yet from my own anecdotal evidence i have multiple friends who have been in long term monogamous relationships for 6+ years (including myself) or no sex for years and years and have tested positive for HPV. My mum also had to get treatment for abnormal cells after 20 years of marriage as have many of her friends.

Do you think this statistic is actually accurate… seems to me like they know shit all about this virus not going to lie, it is very confusing. Perhaps when they think people have cleared it is actually just lying dormant.

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Hi lilystar

I’m not an expert but I think when they say ‘clear’ they mean as evidenced with a negative HPV test. So it’s proabably anyones’s guess how many people are actually infected because as you say it may be a case that the virus is dormant in which case a HPV test will be negative.

There are no hard and fast rules about how HPV may behave in any given individual. For the vast majority of women HPV doesn’t cause any physical harm; it’s an unlucky minority who seem to be susceptible to it’s cancer causing potential.

I think one of the most important things that all women should understand is that HPV can lie dormant for many years (I think it could be decades) and that it can rear its ugly head at any time. This is where I went so wrong; I mistakenly believed, age 50y and with a long history of normal smear test results behind me, that I could safely stop getting them - BIG mistake - see my back story.

x

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Thanks jazza- yes I think you’re right. I just noticed a bit of a disconnect from my experience and from everything I have read.

I know hpv is very common (maybe even having it for years and years) but do you know how common it is to have abnormal cell dyskaryosis? It is my first smear at 25 im new to this and I dont have a sense of how big a deal it is or how worried I should be. My family are calling me a bit ridiculous because I ve been obsessing and worrying over it a lot.

God sounds like you went through it, really sorry! All the best xx

Hi lilystar

I don’t know the stats regarding abnormal cell dyskaryosis but, judging by the number of colposcopy clinics around, it must be pretty common.

The vast majority of women with abnormal cervical cells will not progress to have cervical cancer either because the cells may revert back to normal (especially in younger women) or because they get timely treatment and then get on with the rest of their lives.

According to Cancer Research UK there are about 30,000 women a year in the UK who have treatment such as LLETZ for high grade abnormalities or cancer-in-situ (non invasive cancer) and most of these patients will have no further problems in terms of cancer or needing further treatment.

The number of women with invasive cervical cancer which requires very significant, possibly life changing, treatment is about 3,000 per year in the UK. No doubt this figure would be much higher if it wasn’t for the NHS screening programme.

To put this in perspective; there are over 20 million adult women in the UK.

The most important thing is to keep up to date with smears - always - if I could change one thing about my life it would be not to have missed out on any of my smears.

x

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