Possible Infection

In December I met a girl and we decided to get tested for HIV, Hep, Herpes, etc before getting sexual.  She is also on birth control.  All of our tests were negative.  We had sexual contact from early Jan up until mid Feb.  About 4 weeks after sexual contact I noticed on her an area of small cauliflower type growths at the opening of her vagina. At the time we didn't think much of it.  She went to the doctor and was told she had genital warts.  We stopped all sexual contact at that point, until we found out what my situation is going to be.

I never have and still today don't show any visible signs of warts.  I have been and was with multiple women leading up to this girl.  This girl however, has only had one other partner and that lasted for the previous 2 years.  All of this points to me carrying HPV, probably from my dating different girls this previous fall.  I understand I can spread it without visible genital warts.  My doctor says that its hard to spread it if I don't see anything and it may be more likly that she was harbouring HPV, but I didn't explain to him her lack of sexual partners either.

Question:  Based on the above am I likley to produce visible genital warts in the coming months?  It is now mid-March, if in fact I didn't give this to her and I was exposed, if I don't see anything by May, would you conclude I can relax more?

Thanks.

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Hard to say.  You may have the virus in latent form, or she may have gotten it from a previous partner.  You may get it soon, late, or never.  You know what?  It doesn't matter much.  Chances are one or several of your previous partners had the virus at some point whether they knew it or not.  You can't do anything about warts anyway, unless you can see them, and men get warts on the penile shaft, where you can see them.  So my best advice is just to forget about it--if the warts come, they come.  Your girlfriend should get regular GYN checkups.  Some day we'll have a pill for HPV, but right now we don't.

Best.

Dr. Rockoff

[345medhelpFAN]

Lastly...we are now both single, for other reasons outside of the genital warts thing, I am not seeing anyone and don't plan to be sexual with anyone anytime soon, ideally I am just watching and waiting to see if something shows up.  My exposure ran from mid-Jan to mid - Feb, so when can I start to feel more relaxed about this?  Then again, maybe I caused them in my former girlfriend, does that mean I don't need to be concerned?