@David:
Hmm that seems silly as HPV never goes away and can come back at any time under normal circumstances as I understand it. Your body clears active infection and then it goes into remission or dormancy or something right? Seems to me that a vaccination during a remission could help head off a recurrence when it pops up. I'm going to talk to my MO about it.

HPV is not like some viruses (herpes simplex for instance) that you get and have for ever. Your body is capable of clearing it in most people. There is no evidence in the scientific literature that suggests that it goes dormant and comes back over and over again. If it did this, we would be able to find it during it's dormant state like we can with herpes simplex - which lives on the ganglion of your nerves when dormant. We have no such knowledge about any form of HPV let alone HPV16.

Adding on to what Brian just said... that is exactly why at least one HPV expert (that I know of), like Dr G, believes that one should/could get vaccinated beyond the recommended years and believe me if I were still roaming around single I would have already gotten mine.

I see. Thanks for the info guys.

1. I plan to get the HPV vaccination if they will give it to me. Good to know, DavidCPA...and btw...1/2 cute?! seriously? Don't be modest...no need to use fractions.

2. HPV has to be the oddest behaving virus. Scary.

3. Isn't it pretty rare to get HPV from snatching kisses rather than...uh..ummm...the other way around?

Sandy,

Always look forward to your posts:

1. Not sure they will give shots to really old people ... and OK.

2. The more we learn about HPV the less we realize we know.

3. There are no statistics to support that conclusion. All we do know is that tongue to mouth is a pathway. Of course the chicken and the egg dilemma is always a question.

The FDA cut off the vaccination age for the use of Gardasil at 26, and there was a reason for it. It does not work once you have been exposed to the virus. The medical review panel determined that the vast majority of Americans who are sexually active have been exposed by that age. So the value of getting the jab after that age for the cost is very low.

Thanks, David...and thanks, David. Hey!...wait a second! Who you callin' really old?!?

I guess 50 counts as "really old"

So much for 50 being the new 30. 30 would still be too old for the shot anyway. Oh well.

So, it doesn't matter if I'm in near mint condition, one owner, low miles, only driven on Sundays? Darn.

I've had both of my kids, girl and boy "gardasiled" early on and begged them to abstain as they went through the three rounds. opened up a lot of dialogue, some edgy, some really funny, but glad we had it.

as brian notes, the body can clear out HPV on its own, and you have to have the vaccine before you are sexually active...all the doctors we've talked with agree on this. but is there research on how long HPV stays in the system? 20 years? 2 years? and even if it clears on its own, can it spur an OC down the road? really confused on this.

No one knows the answer to this for sure, though there are a lot of doctors talking like they do. We don't know the life cycle of HPV16 at all, (It's in science circles called the life history of the virus). It has only been two years ago that we were able to actually culture it outside a body in a petri dish to show you how far we are behind the curve. We do not know if it goes dormant in you at all let alone for how long, we don't know if it has a long latency period in people once they are infected before it does harm (in the oral cavity - in the cervix it can be more than two years) If your body clears it, then the onco-proteins that it produces that convert the cell to an immortal cancer cell are not expressed. So not a lot of absolutes in this, nor in most cancers for that matter.

But I think you have done all you can and be proud that you did. Responsible parenting, sometimes appears not to occur in many...