HPV...

Not many people know this about me, but a recent post elsewhere made we decide it was time to tell...

March 2011 I was diagnosed with cervical dysplasia. I was between level II and III. I had gone from nothing a year prior to, to having pre-cancerous cells on my cervix. I was then referred to a gynecologist, who then did a biopsy to see what needed to be done beyond that point. My doctor decided that it would be best to just remove the cells via LEEP, which uses electrical currents to cut away the pre-cancerous cells on the cervix. The removal went well and a year later, nothing was found. I have had nothing pop up since then. 

All of this was caused by HPV. The human papillomavirus is pretty silent, because most don't even realize they have anything wrong with them. Men can't even be tested for it. 

Fast Statistics and Facts About HPV

• Some studies suggest that an estimated 15 percent of men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 are currently infected with genital HPV.
• Women, especially young women, have the highest levels of known HPV infections.
• An average of 14 percent of American female college students get infected with genital HPV each year.
• An average of 28 to 46 percent of women under the age of 25 are infected with genital HPV.
• On average, 60 percent of HIV-negative gay or bisexual men have genital HPV.
• About 26 percent of HIV-negative women have genital HPV.
• On average, 70 percent of HIV-positive women with severely compromised immune systems test positive for genital HPV.
• There are about 30 different types of HPV that can cause a genital HPV infection.
• HPV-16 is the cause of more than 50 percent of cervical cancers in women.
• Cervical cancer is the first cancer in women known to be caused by a virus.
• If a genital HPV infection is persistent after the age of 30 in a woman, there is a greater risk that the woman will develop cervical cancer.
• The average HPV test can find up to 13 strains of the virus that can cause cancer in women.
• There is no clinical way to test for genital HPV in men unless the man already has signs of the infection. A visual inspection is usually the only way to determine the severity of the outbreak.
• The human immune system remembers a certain HPV strain which means it’s possible to become immune to a certain type of HPV. However, there are many different strains, so just because a person is immune to one strain doesn’t mean the individual will not be infected with other strains of HPV.