I understand what you are saying. Here's my anecdotal, non-scientific, "not-a-doctor-so-please-don't-sue-me-for-sharing-my-experience" experience. LOL!
My experience with doctors was completely different from yours. My ENT told me before we even had the results back yet that it was either carcinoma caused by
HPV, or lymphoma which is often caused by smoking. When the results came back as
HPV, he said that it's good news because it is usually easier to treat and has a better prognosis. I asked how I could have gotten it and he said that from what we know right now, oral sex is the most likely means. He did me the favor of not looking embarrassed and continuing to talk about how we were going to treat this and how he has had many patients beat this, etc. so that I didn't have to just sit there with the oral sex comment hanging in the air. (He is a great doctor with an excellent bedside manner and a great surgeon as well - LOVE him!!). He said in his 20-plus years of experience, he is seeing more of this type of cancer, which makes sense because of the increase in the number of people who have more than one partner throughout their lives and who have oral sex.
Likewise, when I saw my ObGyn recently, I told her about the cancer and asked her if since I had the oral cancer, does that make me more likely to get cervical or ovarian cancer. She said not likely. She explained to me that about 90 percent of the sexually active adult population has
HPV and the 10 percent who don't are two virgins who got together. She said that most of the time we fight off the virus but sometimes it gets the better of us and is able to grow more than our immune systems can fight off. But most of the time, our bodies fight it off. But that's why PAP smears are so important and the exam they do to feel for enlarged ovaries, etc. so they can catch things early when they are still "pre-cancerous cells." Again,
HPV is extremely common and most people don't get any kind of cancer from it.
I have been tested for
HPV in the past and it came up negative. But, my Gyn said that that doesn't mean anything other than it wasn't showing up right then. She said they look for pre-cancerous cells and treat those when they come up, which are often caused by
HPV. Treating things quickly before they have a chance to turn into cancer is the way to go for that section of the body. I have had several of the pre-cancerous cells scenarios show up that had to be removed through cryosurgery. I don't know if they tested then for
HPV or not. I do know that I was tested at least once and it came up negative (as I mentioned), but I don't know if they tested again.
So to be on the safe side, I've been eating very healthy foods and exercising. I'm also getting into meditation (well, trying LOL), just to stay as healthy as possible and give my body as much of a fighting chance as possible. My former sugar addiction, junk-food habit, exercise aversion, and high stress levels were a welcome-mat for cancer and heart disease and diabetes, and on and on and on. Well, I learned my lesson and now this body is a gated community! No more welcome-mat! LOL No more riff-raff (junky food and poor habits). Only the creme de la creme (healthy food and habits) for me! Ha ha!
Hopefully, (purely speculating of course) because of the vaccination, there might be less of this cancer amongst the overall population in the future. There are different types of
HPV though and vaccines only cover some of them. There are probably types we don't even know about yet. I did not have the vaccine. I was too old by the time it came out. It was too late for me. From what I understand (and again, no doctor, so take this with a grain of salt), the vaccine won't get rid of an
HPV that you already have. It just helps prevent the strains of
HPV that it inoculates against. They tested me for which strain caused my cancer and I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember which. 16? 13? Either way, even if there is a vaccine for those, I already have it so the vaccine won't cure me of
HPV. That would be an awesome thing though, wouldn't it - if vaccines could cure as well as prevent?
Hopefully your doctors will educate themselves on the topic a bit more. They may have just been embarrassed by the subject, although I think it's crazy to be embarrassed. Smoking is a habit that makes you and those around you sick. Why shouldn't that be just as embarrassing?
Of course, this is only my experience and is not meant to represent anyone else's experience or suggest that anyone else will have similar experiences. (There. That's my experience AND my disclaimer!)
