Hi a11111,
I am not a doctor so please take everything I say with a grain of salt. From reading I have learned the following:
1. There is no officially approved medical test to see if one has oral HPV. There is talk about some methods, research as well, but nothing you can go to the doctor and ask for.
2. HPV virus infects locally, that is one can have the oral one and not on the cervix and vice versa. So your negative PAP/HPV test means it wasn't detected on the cervix, but that gives no information about oral cavity.
3. From what I have read, our body clears any type of HPV within a year or two in most people, over 90% of the cases.

So please try and relax. It is good to have regular checkups with an ENT, but overall chances of getting oral cancer are not that high in most people.

Last edited by Ambra; 11-02-2013 09:29 AM.
36, female, left tonsil HPV+ SCC, T2N1
8/28/13 SCC in left tonsil
9/12/13 surgery:TORS and selective neck dissection (levels II-IV), 23 nodes removed
9/18/13 post surgery biopsy: 2mm clear margins, a 7mm lymph node positive in level IV, no ECL
10/28/13 rad begins, 30 treatments, tomotherapy
12/09/13 radiation ends!
2/10/14 papillary thyroid cancer
2/26/14 PET shows clear neck other than thyroid cancer, but with high uptake in an ovarian cyst
2/27/14 thyroidectomy
3/5/14 pelvic ultrasound