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Hpv, genital warts, conflicting biopsies and the wellness of the mind

Hello everyone. I hope to get a doctors opinion on this, as this has been a long, cold and rainy journey.
In 2017 I had a sexual encounter with a woman that I wasn’t really into, but it was a rough time for me so I went with it anyway. We used a condom for all vaginal sex but not for oral. After about a month or so I ended the relationship. A little while after I noticed a little bump on my frenulum and went to the doctor. This was a dermatologist and he just said “oh it’s just a little condyloma”. He gave me podofilox. I think I didn’t really work but the truth is it was long ago and I don’t really remember.

A while after this I noticed more bumps but they were smaller. The bumps were always smooth, tiny, flat like verruca plana. This started a pattern of me going to the dermatologists, them saying it’s either nothing or fordyce spots or all kinds of stuff, giving me no treatment, and me going home feeling that something is wrong. After a while I had a swab test saying Negative for Hpv. I let it go for about 6 months or more. After that I saw some irritation and bumps and went again to the doctors. This time they were worried and said they need to take a biopsy. I thought that’s crazy. So I went to a urologist and he said he needs a biopsy. Ok.
This was november 2019 and he took 2 samples with a shave biopsy. This was in New York and they sent it to blood and cancer specialists or something like that. Their answer was very short - condyloma acuminata. Not a real histology report, no details, but just the answer.
Ok. The doctor basically took from skin that looked dry and irritated and perhaps a little bumpy. And got that diagnosis from that respectable (I guess) institution.
So, he buzzed (electrocautery) a few spots and let me go. Since then I have bumps come and go, I zap them and what not. Tried everything. Cryotherapy, apple cider vinegar.. Ever since I have stopped drinking, smoking, having sex (no sex since 2017), meeting with most of my friends and more. I have researched the hell out of HPV and It seems like I know more about the virology and treatments then most of the doctors I’ve been to.

The problem is, I probably don’t really.

I went to other doctors and got other biopsies. Punch biopsies. They were in the same areas, but not exact spot, of the former biopsy and got both histology and HPV PCR negative. Histology came out as fibrosis.

Now I know this seems irrational but I still get Extremely tiny bumps. Some times they go away and sometimes they stay. All the treatments (cryo, electrocautery, biopsies, and more) have left my junk looking pretty bad, discolored or hyperpigmented and scarred, and the skin is pretty dry.

I am going to extensive therapy but it’s hard for me to think that I could ever go back to normal. I also feel that most doctors have been very very cold to me. It’s really hard when they look at you as the “crazy patient”.

It seems like I can’t let that old biopsy result go, I know biopsies can get wrong results, but how will I ever be sure?

I think the fact that doctors kept saying it’s nothing and it ended up being exactly what I thought has messed with my head beyond anything I have ever experienced.

It is important for me to mention that I have tiny warts on my forehead as well. Confirmed by a dermatologist.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.
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207091 tn?1337709493
COMMUNITY LEADER
Okay, so first - I'm not a doctor. No one on our site is.

But I'm wondering why both can't be correct. Maybe back in 2019, you had HPV. You've treated it with a lot of different things, and now you have fibrosis. Fibrosis happens when the skin is damaged and scarred tissue takes it's place.

HPV clears in 90% of people within 2 years. With all your testing, it's obviously gone for you now. Now you have scar tissue, basically.

Does that make sense?

The strains of HPV, of which there are hundreds, that affect the genitals don't affect other parts of your body. There are certain strains that cause plantar warts, for example, and certain strains cause common warts that you can get anywhere on your body, some cause flat warts, others cause raised warts. The wart on your forehead has nothing to do with the HPV found on your penis. It's purely coincidence.

For doctors, most HPV is nothing. The strains of HPV that give you warts are considered low risk because they don't cause cancer, and essentially everyone will have at least one strain in their lifetime. It's estimated that about 88% of sexually active adults will get genital HPV at least once in their lives. It's going down now with the HPV vaccines, but if you haven't been vaccinated, it's considered an inevitability that you'll get it.

I'd suggest you stop getting biopsies and such, and let your penis heal. A lot of experts recommend castor oil to help break down fibrous tissues, but talk to your doctor first. Vitamin E oil can help reduce scarring, but again, talk to your doctor first.

Continue with therapy. It sounds like - and again, not a professional here - this has become somewhat of an compulsion to figure out what's going on. A therapist should be able to help you get to a place to find peace working through what you do know, and being okay with it.

Worst case scenario is that you had low-risk HPV that's gone now and have fibrosis. That's not too bad. If the only sexual encounter you had was the woman in 2017, that's your source. If it isn't, you may never know where you got it. HPV can be transmitted even while wearing a condom, as it is transmitted by direct genital to genital skin to skin contact, and the condom doesn't cover all the skin. It can be transmitted by oral sex, but it's a lot less likely.

The incubation period can be a several weeks to several months. Unless that woman was your only partner, you may never know. Many don't. I hope you learn to be okay with that.
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