HPV+ oral cancer patients have the lowest rate of recurrence. That is a known. So unlike tobacco people, getting on with your life as an HPV+ patient should be less stressful, and you should just incorporate good "general lifestyle habits" such as exercise, proper diet, and stress reduction to stay healthy combined with routine check ups just to be sure.

I also find it interesting the comments about stress here. Stress is a of function of how you react to things in your life (positive and negative) and not a function of those events themselves. Negative events in your life have negative impact on you (in the form of stress) if you let them. Obviously this is often easier said than done, given the emotional nature of the human animal. But we all have control over how we respond to stressors. The stress that kills you, comes from inside you. The nature of our existence is one challenge, small or great, after another. In heart disease studies which is heavily tied to stressors and diet, they put as much stressor influence weight on positive events like buying an new house, having a child, marrying your loved one, as they do for negative events like losing your job, a death of a family member etc. Stress is a function of perception and reaction, both are things which you can mold and control. Uncontrolled stress does weaken the immune system. People catch more colds and have other minor heath issues when they are under stress. Herpes simplex one or two, which you get for life, has a documented tendency to manifest itself and come out of dormancy when individuals are under emotional stress.

While I am far from a "new ager," I am a big believer in meditation (TM), and counseling for people to get past issues that stress them. Yoga or even martial arts as both exercise for the body and to develop the mental disciplines to keep things in perspective and relative to their real importance is also valuable.

So well stated, Brian. It really helps to remember that we may not be in control of the events themselves, nor of the people causing them, but we can choose how we respond to them.

Eric, how did I know you would say something like that? You are too funny and naughty.

I would submit that often we are not even aware of stress issues that our body/mind/immune system is dealing with and therefore we can not "deal" with those. Also the "stressors" that we are aware of are often not easily deal away with either. JM2C's

David wrote -
"I would submit that often we are not even aware of stress issues that our body/mind/immune system is dealing with and therefore we can not "deal" with those. "

That's where meditation is helpful - it helps you to identify the noise (stress) in your life, and to help deal with it. We all need a quiet place in our own heads look out from.

I should practice what I preach and meditate more.

True, sometimes you don't realize you're stressed or that you are even depressed. Meditation does help. I started getting into it when I noticed my son had discovered meditation while going through treatment. I think, for me, results didn't happen all at once, though. You can't just do it once and then say, "Well, I'm done. it didn't work". And quit. It takes practice, and pretty soon you see results. I developed a short mantra to repeat and even incorporated the mantra into my passwords for internet access so that every time I logged on, I would have to think about the mantra.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100316142551.htm

HPV Vaccine Protects Patients from Cancer Recurrence, Study Finds

This is reference to cervical cancer and females, but I wonder if I should ask my MO about this. I really don't want to go through this again.

Hank, please read this thread, though more in context of insurance coverage but related to HPV vaccine: http://oralcancersupport.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=139061#Post139061

Important posts from Brian and David. This will help you.

I have said this years ago. In a conversation with Dr Anna Guiliano, Chair of the Dept of Epidemiology at Moffitt and leading HPV researcher who I talk to often and we have traveled to Tallahassee and the CDC to address HPV issues, she told me that if I were still sexually active with multiple partners that I should get the vaccine to protect against future exposures.

Well, that's interesting. Changes the advice I give my son!
Any chance of tacking this at the top of the forum?