HPV or not?

Hello Doctor,

I'm a 20 year old girl, and I have been going crazy for months and months now and I finally need to ask you after all the reading I've done on here.  At the very beginning of December I noticed one or two skin tag looking things, my GP said it could be GW and gave me aldara but said to go to a gyno to confirm. One week after using aldara the bumps disappeared, and I went to my GP a few more times the next few weeks and she too said everything looked clear. It took until late January to get into the gyno, she also assured me there was nothing there.  Since then she has reassured me 4 times, the last time being March 28th where she showed me with some kind of microscope onto a screen that everything is okay. Literally only took me a week to start freaking out again... so it's been constant sleepless nights the past month and I would love your input.

These bumps I have been going to her about are on the outer labia (not where the hair is) but right under the vaginal opening on the outer skin (top of perineum?) and on the right side.  They are only visible when my skin is stretched in a magnified mirror, and they are barely raised at all, same color as my skin, and I can hardly feel them when the skin is relaxed.  Sometimes I have to see them in a certain light.  There are no signs of any bumps on my labia minora.  I keep putting aldara on and I'm not sure if this is irritating them more, but it's driving me crazy and my gynecologist seems to think I'm crazy (not in a bad way, she's very very nice) so I don't want to keep going every few weeks. I feel sometimes they are less visible than others though... a week or two ago I thought they were gone and now they seem to be back to being noticeable again.  Since the aldara I am feeling a bit of soreness on the skin.  They obviously look nothing like the pictures on the internet, but I feel those are such extreme cases! Does this sound like HPV to you???? I keep thinking it must be because the bumps are not symmetrical..

Some other factors: I have been sleeping with my boyfriend since September of 2010, and he has no signs of genital warts (we have unprotected sex regularly).  I also had an abnormal pap but my cervical biopsy and that test where they use dye to see abnormal cells all came back normal.

I would greatly appreciate your advice! Thank you so much

[at1990]

Oops I meant this for the expert forum! sorry everyone

[kld44]

If Aldera seemed to take care of the bump, its probably HPV. Strains of HPV can remain dormant for a while the pop up out of no-where...I have HPV and even though my hubby and I share the same strains (because we have un-protected sex) he shows no symptoms. I had a normal pap, showing no signs of HPV, or displaysia, the a few months ago, developed vaginal warts. Mine are on the labia majora as well. If your doc doesn't seem to be worried, neither should you :o) They see this stuff all the time :) I hope this helps, even though I'm not an expert! Lol! I feel I have learned a lot from this forum! Best wishes!

[at1990]

What do your warts look like?! My gyno always tells me mine on the labia majora are not warts... Aldara doesn't help these ones, it just irritates them it seems. My gyno said the ones the aldara did help could have been skin tags because they went away so quickly and aldara is a strong skin cream used for various conditions... I'm not sure what to think :S