pap smears normal, is hpv cleared or gone?

If abnormal paps become normal, does that mean hpv is cleared or gone. is it still contagious if paps are normal every year?

[scope36]

no hpv you will have forever. you should still get a pap evey six months and if they r still normal then every year.

[tara1414]

Just because the paps are normal does not mean the hpv is gone. BUT. I dissagree with the last poster, some hpv's can go away on their own if you have a healthy immune system. Ask your doc for an hpv test if you want to know.
Pap tests are still important and should be done once a year to be safe..

[Mishy_88]

even though the symptoms may go away u are still a carrier of the virus and can pass it on to any partner u have! this is very important to remember and believe me wen everything is going good u may forget u have it and pass it on to some else. thats wat happened with me and my husband. i genuinely forgot, it may sound impossible but i didn't remember until i got another wart. however unlike the others it didn't disappear and thats wen i told him. this was before we were married and he took it pretty hard but he's fine now. NEVER FORGET THAT U ARE A CARRIER!

[Amanda0922]

There is a lot of speculation as to whether hpv really does ever go away or if it simply goes into dormancy. Chances are, when a strain of hpv is "cleared" it has actually gone dormant in an individual's system. What this means is that the virus is no longer active and will not cause symptoms. It also means that an hpv test will return a negative result, even though the virus is still present in the individual's system, in a non-active state. An individual with a strain of hpv that has gone dormant is not contagious to their partner. This is why, from everything I have read, experts seem to agree that once an hpv strain is cleared, the individual is under no obligation to inform a future partner of their experience with the virus. However, hpv can also come out of dormancy later in life, reactivating and once again becoming transmittable. This all depends on the individual's immune system and is all the more reason to make a lifelong commitment to healthy living, in my opinion :) I recommend to everyone to read Janet Maccaro's 90 Day Immune System Makeover for pushing hpv into dormancy and keeping it there.