Hi I hope my anxiety won’t appear trivial considering what so many others are going through on this forum
I’m 63 and last year I had a positive hpv smear result BTW I haven’t been sexually active for at least the last 6 years I have always had regular smear tests as had abnormal cells when I was 28. I was told by my nurse at the surgery that the lab hadn’t gone on to test the sample as it was unreadable due to, they thought, some sort of infection. I was given antibiotics and told to come back for another smear in 3 months.(swab came back as BV infection) Next smear 3 months came back, hpv negative.
My question is how can I be hpv positive one minute then 3 months later be negative I can’t help thinking that the second smear test may be a false positive and ideally a third test would put my mind at rest but I’m told that within the national smear test screening service guidelines it would ild mean I won’t get called up again because my last smear was negative and I will be over the age of 64 in three years time so won’t get another smear test again on the nhs. Should I be asking my GP for a third test to allay my anxieties once and for all?
Hi @Poppet10
Its very unlikely they would repeat the test for peace of mind plus the lab would reject it since youve had one recently… but its nothing out of the ordinary that this has happened, our immune systems push it into dormancy thus clearing the infection… so having a positive test 3 months ago vs a negative test now basically just means your immune system has done what its supposed to do against HPV 
Only thing you can maybe do to put your mind at rest is do a self test kit, but its extremly unlikely youll get one through your GP xx
Hi Poppet10
I agree with Tinkerbelle29 that, even if your GP agreed to do another smear test, the lab would refuse to process it because the NHS cervical screening programme runs according to certain guidelines.
I think your options are either to do nothing, self sample for HPV (kits can be bought on-line) or go private. If you decide to self sample you need to consider what you would do if the result was postive: you would probably want your cells checked but I think it is unlikely the NHS would do that so then you would have to be prepared to get it done privately.
There have been various conversations on this forum about 64y being too young to stop cervical screening. Having had life changing treatment for stage 2 cc I wouldn’t risk it for the sake of a smear test and would get at least get a couple of private smears done between the ages of 64y and 75y.
x
Thank you for taking the time to reply
