Any mouth lesion a patient has inside their mouth for 2-3 weeks without it getting better on its own needs to be checked by a medical professional. In the US that would be an ENT who specializes in treating oral cancer patients, NOT the kind of ENT who primarily puts tubes in kids ears. I am guessing this to be pretty standard no matter what country you are residing in. Before I go into anything else, I want to make certain you fully understand the group you have joined. Im sorry if we do not have the info you need, our members (including myself) are oral cancer patients/survivors and caregivers. That said, our opinions of situations are in no way similar to that or a substitute for a doctor or medical professional. Asking patients/survivors/caregivers specific medical questions and using those replies as a guide to replace the medical advice of a doctor should never be done! We do NOT have many years of in depth medical education, clinical patient experience, the patients complete medical history, or the patient right in front of us to examine and ask clarifying questions. Regardless of having the patient present or not we do NOT have to medical knowledge or skills needed to give anyone advice. We always try to help everyone but unfortunately we do not have the education, training, skills, etc to compare our situations as oral cancer patients/survivors and/or caregivers to anyone else or to give reliable medical advice that replaces that of a true medical professional. The OCF public forum is a group of people who have oral cancer in common which has almost a 50% survival rate at 5 years post diagnosis, requires horrendous, barbaric treatments causing extreme suffering to almost everyone as well as an extraordinarily long bumpy road of recovery. We normally do not know much about lesser medical conditions besides what we have been thru ourselves.
Heres some basic
HPV info which might be helpful to you. In the US, there in no such thing as an accurate
HPV test kit available for males. Im sorry but I cant be certain if this is something other countries have available or not but I doubt its out there. In the US the FDA (food and drug administration) has strict guidelines for any health products, medicines, etc to go thru. The process takes years to run several studies, testing, etc to bring something new to the general public. For US women, the
HPV is part of the regular pap smear exam.
HPV is as you already know, a STD (sexual transmitted disease). Most of the adult US population (about 80-90%) will have
HPV at some point in their lives. For 95-99% of
HPV+ patients, the virus commonly lies dormant for years, sometimes for decades never causing any symptoms or ill heath and by itself it disappears without incident. Most never even know they have
HPV at all. Theres hundreds of strains, most of them are benign. The strain of
HPV that causes the most serious issues is #16 but even testing positive for #16 does not mean the
HPV will ever turn into anything serious. Its a very low percentage of
HPV+ patients who ever end up with oral cancer (OC), Im not positive but seem to remember that rate is very low, less than 5%. OC patients who have their cancer caused by
HPV will almost always have it appear in the base of their tongue or tonsil areas. Im sorry but I do not know how long after a suspected
HPV contact a previously
HPV free person would need to wait before they test positive for
HPV. Its been well over 2 decades of research that has been done which OCF has helped to finance since the very beginning with Dr Maura Gillison who is now the leading
HPV research doctor in the US. Everything that has been discovered is just a drop in the bucket compared with how much more info needs to be uncovered so we can better understand the complexities of
HPV and how to prevent it from causing serious health concerns years later.
I strongly recommend getting the Guardisil shot to protect yourself from the cancer causing strains of
HPV. It is available in the US for both men and women from ages 9 thru 45 years old. Its a 2 series shot with the second dose being given 6-12 months after the first one. Its not just OC thats caused by
HPV, it also causes genital warts, cervical, penile, vaginal and anal cancers. The shot will not eliminate
HPV strains that have already been picked up which is why its important to vaccinate children as young as possible before they become sexually active. In the US theres another brand of
HPV shot available but Im sorry, I do not remember its name or who makes it.
Hope this extra info helps. For even more
HPV info click on any of the
HPV letters you see in this post or any other on the forum and you will be taken to more detailed
HPV info which changes all the time with new discoveries.
Best wishes!!!