Treating and Preventing HPV
Consequences of HPV
Understanding HPV
Genital Warts Health Project
Home Remedies to Remove Common Warts
Warts are ugly and persistent little rascals, but they aren’t the end of the world, nor do they come from toads. Nearly everyone has had a wart at some time in their life and as many can attest, they are often difficult to get rid of permanently.
What is a wart?
A wart is caused by the HPV (human papilloma virus) and that’s not just genital warts either. There are over 100 HPV types currently identified. Since warts are caused by a virus that also means warts are contagious. They can be transmitted from skin contact, sharing towels, sharing razors, not wearing shoes on locker room or pool room floors… nearly anywhere.
Most warts are characterized by their rough, cauliflower appearance and can last for as little as a few months or persist for years depending on how fast your immune system can attack and destroy the infection. Warts are also known to reoccur if they are not removed fully.
Different types of warts include:
Common warts, identified by rough, cauliflower-like surface occurring mostly on hands and knees.
Flat warts which are small, smooth and flat occurring mostly on the face, neck, hands, wrists and knees.
Filiform or digitate warts, characterized by their thread- or finger-like appearance which appear mostly near the eyes.
Plantar warts are usually identified as a large lump that occurs on the soles of the feet. Plantar warts can be painful when pressure is applied to the afflicted area.
Genital warts or venereal warts are soft bumps found near and on the genital area.
Home remedies to remove warts
The most popular remedy is duct tape (also called occlusion therapy) and studies show it works. In fact a study has shown that this duct tape home remedy is 20% more effective than standard cryotherapy. Not only is this method not painful in the slightest, it’s cheap too!
Apply a strip of duct tape to the wart for six days straight. Remove the tape and use a pumice stone or emery board to scrape the dead skin off the sight of the wart. Continue up to two months until the wart is totally gone.
Why does duct tape work? Some say there’s something in the glue that stimulates the immune system into attacking and destroying the wart. Others think that it’s because you’re suffocating the wart. Yet others think that it’s just an affective way to file down a wart. The true answer is not scientifically known.
You can also try placing a banana peel on the site of a wart, covering it then with a bandage. Replace with a fresh peel when the first one gets old. Keep applying until the wart is gone.
Garlic supplements can help your immune system attack a wart and destroy it quicker than without. Applying a small piece of garlic directly to a wart is also effective. Word of caution though; garlic can greatly irritate your skin.
Soak a cotton ball in vinegar and place it on the wart. Cover with a bandage and replace every couple days. Soon the wart will shrivel and fall off.
Put a potato on it. Rubbing a raw potato over a wart a couple times daily will help diminish a wart.
Dabbing a few drops of tea tree oil onto a wart a couple times daily will help it disappear. Tea tree oil is a powerful antiseptic and has a very high rate of success in removing warts.
–Magdalena (source)
Do you have any home remedies for warts? Comment and tell us about them!
Genital Warts Medicine And It’s Uses
There are various ways that you can contract genital warts just as there are many diverse genital warts medicine treatments available. Really, it’s possibly a tossup as to which one comes out the clear winner in sheer numbers.
For one thing, genital warts medicine doesn’t have to be restricted only to medicinal and surgical treatments. They can also include such treatments as natural remedies, herbal remedies, holistic approaches as well as alternative genital warts medicine treatment methods.
Accordingly not everyone feels comfortable about going down this particular route and will instead stick to the more usual practices of scientific genital warts medicine. For other people nonetheless, for whom these standard methods of treatment could have waned over the years, the alternative approaches to genital warts medicine treatments are just what they need.
The issue which arises here isn’t that any of these alternative approaches being wrong or unduly dangerous. It lies instead in the truth that most people will try and treat themselves without having first obtained a correct diagnosis. This might be stating the obvious, but not having gone throughout the rigors of medical school yourself, the average lay person is in no way qualified to diagnose or treat themselves.
Besides which, if you resort to taking over-the-counter medications to treat your genital warts you aren’t using customary genital warts medicine. The over-the-counter medications which can be readily found are not really suitable because of their strong nature and shouldn’t be used as a genital warts medicine.
Correct genital warts medicine can only be obtained with a prescription, and even after that you will find that the medication usually needs to be applied by trained medical personnel. Also, these types of genital warts medicine can not, in just about all of the cases, be used by pregnant women as the medicine can have a harmful effect on the unborn fetus. The same applies for individuals who have other underlying medical conditions which will stop them from taking the prescription genital warts medicine.
On the other hand, if people are looking for a readily available genital warts medicine which is also all natural, they need to look no further than their own kitchen. Garlic, and Vinegar is the order of the day, in conjunction with such items as Onions, Shitake mushrooms, Apple juice, Pineapple and even Green tea. All of these ordinary items can be safely used to help you fight off the HPV infection. They are all great natural genital wart medicine treatments and can be used without fear of side effects. That is if you’re not allergic to any of these ingredients!
Condylox is often used for the treatment of anogenital warts (external genital warts and perianal warts) and is the first FDA approved gel. Condylox works by destroying infected cells by stopping the cell growth process. The active ingredients in Condylox get straight to the problem and begin treating your genital warts immediately.
There are also other generic names for Condylox such as Podofilox. Outside of the USA Condylox is known as Condyline. There are a number of gels and creams used as genital warts medicine and your doctor is best placed to inform you of the various treatments.
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How can you tell if you have genital warts?
Genital warts can be extremely hard to diagnose many times. Genital warts are small, bumpy, fleshy colored objects that can be so tiny that they cannot be seen by the naked eye. Often times they are confused with skin tags. If you are worried that you may have genital warts, you have a few options. It is always recommended that you visit a doctor so that they can be properly diagnosed, though due to the type of affliction, many people are embarrassed to go to the doctor because of their genital warts.
If you would rather diagnose the problem yourself, there is an effective way of diagnosing genital warts without going to the doctor. It is an old trick that makes use of some simple items found around the house. To self diagnose genital warts, you will need vinegar and a paper towel or napkin.
Here is how to find out if you have genital warts without having to see a physician:
- Pull off a few sheets of paper towel and fold them up so that they can be used as an absorbent pad.
- Pour enough vinegar on the paper towel pad to soak it, but not so much that vinegar is dripping everywhere.
- Apply the pad to the part of the body that is in question, whether it be penis or vagina
- Hold the pad firmly against the body part in question for 10 minutes and remove the pad
Any white spots that appear are determined to be genital warts.
To remove genital warts, you can either go see a physician who will freeze them off for you - otherwise there are safe and natural methods of wart removal that you can do at home without having to see a doctor.
More throat, mouth cancers linked to HPV
By Jill Coley
Many young nonsmokers get disease as result of contracting virus from oral sexual contact
About once a week, Dr. Boyd Gillespie shocks a young nonsmoker with the diagnosis that he has cancer in the back of his mouth.
Most oral cancers are related to a lifetime of tobacco or alcohol abuse, but that profile is changing.
Gillespie, a head and neck cancer surgeon at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Hollings Cancer Center, is seeing an increasing number of patients who are young, have little if any smoking history and have cancers predominantly of the tonsil and the back of the tongue.
The culprit is human papillomavirus, or HPV, the same sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. The oral cancer does not discriminate between sexes, striking men and women at equal rates, Gillespie said.
About 25 percent of the 40,000 head and neck cancers annually in the United States, or about 10,000 cases, might be attributable to HPV, Gillespie said. A decade ago, the number of mouth cancers related to the virus was nearly zero.
It’s a trend that other head and neck practitioners around the country also have witnessed, he said. Boyd and virologist Natalie Sutkowski have studied and confirmed that factors such as age, smoking history and tumor location and appearance are highly predictive of which tumors are caused by HPV.
Risk factors are similar to those for cervical cancer: younger age of first sexual intercourse and multiple sexual partners. With throat and mouth cancers, oral sexual contact also is a factor.
“Oral sex is probably a bigger part of first sexual contact than maybe it was in the past,” Gillespie said. A 2005 national study reported that more than half of U.S. teenagers from 15 to 19 had engaged in oral sex. That percentage jumped to 70 percent by ages 18 and 19.
But the complete story of the virus’s transmission is not known. “It’s unclear if it’s only passed through sexual contact,” Sutkowski said. “It would not be impossible in my mind that it could be passed through kissing.” A recent study in Nature Clinical Practice Oncology reported that “direct mouth-to-mouth contact or other means could not be excluded.”
Another factor contributing to the rise in HPV-related oral cancers could be that doctors 10 years ago didn’t necessarily look for the virus, Sutkowski said, and methods of testing have improved.
Also, more people smoked 10 years ago, so it was easier to blame tobacco.
But as more patients in their 20s and 30s appeared who didn’t smoke or abuse alcohol, the medical community took note.
Symptoms of HPV-related oral cancer include a visible growth or lesion on the tonsils or the base of the tongue that might affect speech or swallowing.
The ulcer might be sore, might bleed and could cause hoarseness. Gillespie recommends patients seek medical attention if they’ve had symptoms for a month or longer.
Some positive news is that HPV-related oral cancers have a good prognosis. But early intervention is key, Gillespie said, as survival rates fall from 90 percent to 50 percent when the cancer spreads to the lymph nodes.
To help people get medical attention early, the Hollings Cancer Center will open the Oral Lesion Clinic this month. The clinic will be staffed by a head and neck surgeon and an oral pathologist who will evaluate sores, ulcers and growths in the mouth or throat. A majority of patients will be referred by doctors or dentists.
The increased attention could lead to a push in boys receiving the HPV vaccine, marketed as Gardasil by Merck.
There are more than 100 strains of HPV, about 13 of which are considered high-risk.
The vaccine protects against four types: HPV-16, which is responsible for half of cervical cancers and the majority of virus-related mouth and throat cancers, HPV-18, which is also responsible for cervical cancers, and strains 11 and 6, which are associated with genital warts.
Whether the vaccine protects against oral cancer remains to be seen but seems logical, Boyd said.
“Our hope is that by reducing the number of people incubating HPV-16 in the community, we will also see a dropoff of throat cancer.”
From virus to tumor
How a virus interacts with tissue and becomes a tumor is complicated. Virologist Natalie Sutkowski might have unlocked one process that contributes to human papillomavirus’s transformation to cancer.
Sutkowski has discovered an ancient viral conversation that takes place when HPV meets human DNA.
About 8 percent of human DNA is derived from virus particles that have worked their way into the human genome over millions of years, Sutkowski said.
Normally, these viral particles do nothing. But when HPV is introduced, the viral particles are activated and cause inflammation. The increased blood flow, in turn, nourishes tumors.
“It’s known that inflammation helps tumors grow,” Sutkowski said. “And these viral particles turn on inflammation. So maybe it’s just as simple as that — the inflammation may be helping tumors grow.”
Sutkowski, working closely with head and neck cancer surgeon Boyd Gillespie, is now turning her attention to searching for drugs to inhibit these ancient genes, stop the inflammation and interrupt the tumors’ growth.
Cancer Vaccine For Girls At Private Hospital
A cervical cancer vaccine for young girls, that has yet to be made available under the NHS, can be accessed at Spire Gatwick Park Hospital – part of independent hospital provider Spire Healthcare.
The vaccine is administered in three doses and protects against the human papilloma virus (HPV). It is believed to reduce the incidence of genital warts by 90%, cervical cancer by 75%, other cancers of the genital tract and also of the oesophagus and some oropharyngeal cancers, the hospital claims.
Every year 3,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in Britain and three women under 44 die every day from the disease.
Dr Tina Peers, consultant in contraception and sexual health, has set up a new clinic at Spire Gatwick Park Hospital to administer the vaccine and provide advice to women and the parents of girls aged 12 and over.
“The benefits of this vaccine will be felt by women and their families for a long time,” she said. “Although the government has recommended that the vaccine is available on the NHS for 11-12 year olds from next September there has been no announcement of a catch up programme so those girls aged between 13 and 24, who are most at risk will not receive treatment on the NHS.”
Spire Gatwick Park Hospital
0845 6035511
Surgical Cure For Genital Warts
A surgical cure for genital warts involves the use of one of these four methods: surgical excision, cryosurgery, laser treatment or electrocautery.
The laser surgery consists on the use of laser on the warts to kill them and to stop the bleeding. This procedure may require the use of anesthesia.
Electrocautery is similar to laser surgery except that it uses electricity instead of laser. Electricity runs through a special instrument to produce the necessary heat to burn the warts off. Generally, this procedure is performed under local anesthesia.
The other method is called cryosurgery. It involves the freezing of the warts using liquid nitrogen at -196°C to damage their tissues. This procedure is not as painful as electrocautery, and it can be carried out without the use of anesthesia.
There are also cases when the doctor would chose to perform a surgical excision on the genital warts using scissors or a scalpel. In this case anesthesia can be local or general depending on the size of the warts an their location.