Frustated With Warts, Have Been Living With HPV For 5 Years ;(

[SoConfusing200]

ok this is going to be a long story but please help me :(

first of all, I have been diagnosed with HPV (genital warts) since 5 years ago, that was in 2010. I also had another username here but i forgot the password so i login with new username. basically my story with HPV has been cruel. where most people do not have new warts after 2 years (it's written in a lot of sites 90% people can suppress their HPV within 2 years), but sadly it's never been the case with me. I never had sex until June 2015 (since 2011) and I can tell you the second last time I had new warts confirmed by doctor was back in February 2015. I think the doctor used TCA back then and yes it made the wart disappear.

so the point is, it's been more than 3 years and yet i still have new warts every 3-7 months. I never had any "1 year free from warts" situation on my genital area. It became worrying but at the same time I became less caring and caring. one day i told myself "what's the point overthinking about these annoying little things...i can just go to doctor and he will make them disappear, after all thinking about them won't make the virus go away". i think that's good that i have spontaneously thought about that but at the same time i also feel such thinking means i'm already tired fighting this virus.

then i finally began to have sex again June this year. it's different compared to back then. I admit 4-5 years ago i had "one night stand" kind of relationships with some women. now it's different because i'm in a fully committed long term relationship with my GF so i thought it should be safe. i had sex 5 times with her in total, with the last time was in the 2nd week of July. i use condom ofcourse. fast forward, now I can see at least 1 obvious wart and 2 "not so obvious" small warts. When I said "not so obvious" small warts, I mean it looks like wart but i'm not sure because i also had this kind of situation before (small bumps that I believed were warts but in the end was nothing. sometimes it's very hard to know if it's wart or just something else like skin irritation because of shaving etc.)

I dont know if these new warts are new HPV infection that I got from my GF or simply recurrence of the previous infection that I had since 2010. Whichever it is, it feels so annoying and made me cry because I have been fighting this for 5 years and yet things dont look brighter at all. Just so you guys know, I changed my lifestyle, from a kind of person who like to have sex with random women, to someone who stay at home all the time, from an outgoing person to a nerd SIMPLY because of this virus. It completely changed what I think about safe sex. When I finally had the chance to meet decent woman and finally have a committed relationship, these little warts haunted me back ;( it feels so annoying and depressing.

I have discussed about this with my GF but she claimed she never knew about this. It's very possible she had HPV in the first place from her ex, who knows, because there's no test at all for wart-related HPV. I think she's just like many  others, people who have asymptomatic infections. considering there are a lot of them, I think it's normal if she never had any but still pass the virus to me. I dont know and probably would never know if these warts is simply new infection or recurrence from the 2010 infection (considering last time I had wart was february 2015 and at that time it was already more than 3 years since i had sex). but in the end it feels so heartbreaking because when I can finally feel "moving on" about sex, these little bastards haunt me back again. Now for the questions:

1. I have heard a lot about HPV vaccines, gardasyl and the likes. I'm 27 now and I know the vaccine is supposed to be taken by teenagers who never had HPV in the first place but I wonder if it's still wise to take it? i just dont want any new infection in case I break up with my current GF and meet someone else. it's just too annoying to deal with these little things.

2. Is there any non prescribed cream or liquid that i can buy to kill warts? there seems to be none in my country. and even every time i go to a doctor there are only 2 options. one is Podophyllotoxin and another one is TCA. pdophyllotoxin doesnt seem to be very effective tbh, i ever had one and it did not do anything. of course apart of these creams, doctor can also perform mini surgery to forcefully remove the wart. but im tired wasting my money to doctor because one drop of TCA/pdophyllotoxin cost me a lot of money and yet they keep reappearing every 3-6 months ;(

3. I dont know but this is the most important question, how do I cheer up myself :( I just....dont know...nowadays it feels like, sex is very dirty....and i feel like i dont want to do it anymore with all the possible risks involved even with condom you know, i just dont understand, is it my bad luck? i mean....i can understand if i get STD in 2010 considering my sh***y lifestyle back then but now I have completely changed. my GF is a good woman but still I get these annoying little things ;( im afraid if i break up with her and i meet someone new I might get other viruses like HSV or worse, im becoming very paranoid about STDs. although i dont think i will break up with my GF because i love her but nobody can predict the future. To be honest if I break up one day I dont think I can ever approach any woman again just because I hate all the risks associated with sex ;( this is depressing.

[abhishekh_singh]

Thanks for such an eloboration . I know this feeling of having warts is annoying even I feel the same though I hv not found ne wart but im doubtfull if I hv wart inside my anal canal. Coz I figured out 2 to 3 dots very close inside the spinchter muscle but again I dont know if they r warts or ne other things. So can u just give me n idea as how a wart inside the anal canal feels. Do they pain or itch. Coz I sometimes feel anal itch only when I walk but not when I m sitting. I dont feel ne discomfort. Plz reply.

[Finallygone]

Hey Mr Confusing,

I hear you, HPV is hard to live with... it can get you depressed and isolated, been there (and still am a bit).

I also understand you trying to figure out were the new outbreak came from, but believe me, it's no use. In 5 years I had sex a few times with only one guy, so he's the one... He never had an outbreak and so denies having "it" or giving it to me. Maybe my ex gave it to me and the virus stayed dormant for all that time, it IS possible... but in any case...what I learned: IT DOES NOT MATTER. It's no use trying to find someone to blame, it will not cure you. Playing detective, worrying and arguing with yourself and your gf only will deplete your much needed energy to fight this virus and you might lose a good girl over a moot point.

There are 2 HPV types that cause 90% of wart outbreaks: type 6 and 11
It is possible to get tested for the type. I have type 6, so Gardasil (Protecting against types 6, 11, 16 and 18) will still help only for type 11 for me... and also for 16 and 18 which can cause cancer!!

Now since you've had it for so long, you might have a problem with your immunity... me too I have lupus (auto immune disease). So you need to take probiotics (your immunity lives mainly in your gut). Also take extra folic acid, some zinc and a good vitamin all-round supplement. All of this will also help with the depressed mood. Don't smoke, work out and try not to drink alcohol.

Now for the good new (I posted this story in an other conversation as well): after trying a lot of creams, liquids and treatments, I found there's something new on the market... maybe it can help you too. It's a cream called Veregen that I have tried this summer and it's made from green tea extract. It did wonders for me, although it was complete horror using it. I had only 1 small mother queen wart left on my perineum and 3 hardly visible ones around them. When I started using the cream, suddenly they seemed to spread all over. I was warned that any existing (invisible under the skin) ones, would start showing... these are the ones that are left untreated and cause a new outbreak. But it were sooo many!! In a weeks time they got bigger and very painful. I panicked, went to my gynea. He didn't know the cream and told me to stop using it and let him remove all of them under general anaesthesia the next week. After 3 days of discontinuing the cream, only the mother queen and the 3 other small ones were left, so I called of the surgery. Compared to Aldara and everything else I tried, this cream finally really seemed to impact the warts, so after consulting my doctor, I decided to give it another try. The next week I started again, with the same reaction. They seemed to be everywhere!! At least 30 of them, not just on my perineum, but my whole private zone. This time I pushed trough... giving myself a one or two day break from the cream after 4 days or so when the pain was to bad. After 7 days they most had gotten hard and some of them black. In the following 3 days they started falling of. The mother queen was one of the last to go. It had gotten much bigger and fell out like some evil black rice grain, leaving a small whole, like a pulled tooth. I was afraid the small whole would be visible forever, but it completely disappeared. I have baby skin again, everywhere. When this one was out I stopped treatment, cause I couldn't take it any more. After a week I started again for the few small ones left much further away from my perineum. Again much more came and about 10 days later all of them were gone. Now I have no scaring anywhere and I truly hope I "processed" all of them, so no new outbreaks will follow... I do have itching, maybe because the skin is still in healing mode??

Sorry for the bad english and good luck to you!!