I was told in March I had HPV and haven’t told anyone in my family and only told one friend who lives miles away.
I rang the doctors as worried about having HPV and told just to look at this website…
I’m so worried and scared too. I have tried to eat healthy, take vitamins and do some exercise but is this enough to make it go away?
I know I should tell my children and my husband but he doesn’t give any sympathy for anything and hate to think what he’ll say other than blame me.
I have a feeling he may have been unfaithful during the 7 years we have been married ( today is our anniversary ) and been together for 10 years. if he has he’ll swear he hasn’t and it’s nothing to do with him and that he couldn’t have passed anything on to me. He’s in his 60’s and I’m in my 50’s and both been married before.
Since I found out about the HPV result I have kept him at arms length regarding love making .
No idea what to do and just feel so alone.
HPV is very common and there is a lot of information on the main Jo’s Trust web pages. It’s only very recently that women have been tested for HPV and it can live in the body for years. You may have had it ever since your first marriage - in fact it’s more likely than not that you would have been exposed to it before you married your current husband. We know it can be dormant for years if the body doesn’t clear it - and whether or not the body clears it is due to the activity of your immune system. Stressors as well as other environmental challenges can reduce your immunity and even precipitate the development of abnormal cells.
I have been with my current husband since 1994, and was diagnosed with cancer in November 2020. But I first had abnormal cells prior to 2000, and these must have been developing for years. Changes are very slow in the squamous cells, which is where most problems occur. I most likely got it from my first husband, who was my first sexual partner. I was not his - but that’s not unusual. He was also not faithful to me; but he could have had it when we married. The thing is that we would not have known. It’s only now (since 2018 I believe) that HPV is routinely tested for with smear tests. Although it’s good to know if you have a vulnerability, it also means women now know whether or not they carry the virus, and this brings added anxieties. So many women on here are told they are HPV positive, but have no changes or maybe borderline changes which can go away by themselves. They then are still worried because changes could happen, not that they necessarily have. It’s the price of knowledge.
Personally I think you need to get some information from these pages and talk to someone you trust at least. It’s not like having to tell your family you have cancer - far from it! But think whether it’s really what you want to shut your husband out over something that may be nothing to do with him, in actuality. And it’s important if you do tell him that he understands it’s very common, and that you’re not saying you have cancer!! You do not have cancer, you have a virus, albeit a very tenacious one. You do not need to go telling your children if you don’t want to - it’s not going to affect them. You will see that it’s reckoned just about everyone who has ever been sexually active could have had the virus, but for most people their bodies fight it off within a couple of years. There are lots of ladies in their 50s and 60s who had it at one time in their lives and never even knew.
As for how to boost your immune system - there are other replies on threads about this.
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It would be good to look at the pages on HPV
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/information/hpv/what-is-hpv
At the bottom is a helpline you can call for emotional support. X
