HPV Symptoms
The main symptoms of HPV are the appearance of warts. These warts can grow on all parts of your body. They can grow on your skin, on the inside of your mouth, on your genitals and on your rectal area. Some types of HPV tend to cause warts on the skin, while other HPV types tend to cause warts on the genitals and rectal area. But it is the genital warts which are the most cause for concern.
You may be surprised to learn that only a small percentage of those people with the HPV virus have any visible warts and it can take anything from two weeks to several months for these genital warts to appear after infection has taken place. It may even take years. The virus can live in the skin for a very long time without causing any HPV symptoms, and because so many people who are infected with HPV don’t show any symptoms, it is important for anyone who is having sex to get regular medical checkups.
The symptoms of human papilloma virus are not the same in everyone:
Genital warts first appear as tiny blemishes, perhaps as small as the head of a pin.
They then grow so that they become the size of a pea (small white lumps and bumps).
In time they can grow into larger, cauliflower-shaped growths.
Other genital wars may be flat and barely visible.
There may be a single wart or many.
These genital warts can appear anywhere on the genitals such as around the vulva, on the head or shaft of the penis, on the scrotum or in or around the anus.
They can appear around the anus without anal sex having taken place.
They can develop inside the vagina or on the cervix.
They can even in rare cases develop in the mouth or throat after oral sex has taken place with an infected partner.
The incidence of genital warts is much higher in females than males.
Males tend to be the carriers of the HPV virus.
Warts are usually painless but can irritate the skin or may be uncomfortable.
There can be a little bleeding from warts inside the vagina or anus.
When anal warts become large, they can cause more extensive bleeding and pain with bowel movements.
Warts need a certain type of skin cell to grow in and therefore they cannot spread higher up into your colon or uterus.
Genital warts grow much better in the anus or cervix than they do on a male’s penis.
The wart itself is not actually the virus but your body’s reaction to the virus within its cells.
The different HPV types are numbered to distinguish them from each other. Types 6 and 11 are most likely to cause genital warts while types 16 and 18 frequently cause pre-cancerous growths.
If you are pregnant with HPV symptoms of genital warts then it advisable to undergo treatment as warts tend to grow rapidly during pregnancy and may become numerous and large. This may be due to a weakened immune system although there is some evidence to suggest that HPV is influenced by progesterone which is high during pregnancy. Having genital warts treatment during pregnancy reduces the risk to your unborn child.
Many experts believe that when a genital wart is present, the HPV virus is active and more likely to be contagious. When the wart disappears, the virus is still there but it may be less likely to spread.
Sometimes genital warts go away without treatment and sometimes if they are left untreated, they may grow bigger and multiply. This is why you should never just ignore these symptoms of HPV virus. Because there are high risk and low risk strains of HPV, genital warts can be especially worrying for females because HPV can cause problems with the cervix that may lead to cervical cancer.
So to sum up HPV genital warts is a sexually transmitted disease usually found n the moist areas of the genitalia. The most common sexually transmitted disease n the US, it is part of the family of human papilloma viruses. Although HPV symptoms of genial warts are not usually very troublesome, they are the leading cause of abnormal Pap smears and pre-cancerous changes of the cervix. Women with genital warts have an increased risk of developing cervical cancer. The virus can be transmitted from mother to baby during childbirth. There is no cure - the virus that causes genital warts is usually present for life. It is therefore important that any HPV symptoms should not be ignored.
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