“How did I get this and what do I need to do?”
I’m a 39 year old male. Today, after a biopsy, my colorectal surgeon called to let me know that I have anal warts. I recognize that this isn’t the end of the world, but it picked at some scabs from the past, and I would like to try to trace it and determine if I should have taken the action of more testing than I did after I was sexually assaulted.
At the age of 13, a homosexual relative raped me. Before I got married (my only other sexual partner in my life), I was tested for HIV because it was the big thing everyone feared at the time, and I was scared that the SOB could have infected me because, in hindsight, I believed he was promiscuous. I was young and dumb and probably should have had another testing for STDs, but I didn’t know any better.
I share about the assault because, frankly, it’s the only thing that makes sense as the cause of today’s news. And yet it doesn’t.
My wife and I are in a monogamous marriage, and I have zero anxiety that she’s had an affair. Even if I were concerned about that possibility from an emotional/trust perspective (I’m not), with many kids and lives/peer groups that are pretty tightly intertwined day in and day out, there isn’t even an opportunity for that to have occurred. I’ve also had zero other sexual partners, and frankly, I have low testosterone, which serves as a sad but pretty powerful inhibitor for sexual intimacy in our marriage for 10 years.
From what I understand, 25 years between the assault and the occurrence of warts would be quite a stretch for HPV to lie dormant. I’ve read some articles that say recent studies are suggesting that it’s viewed now as being likely (albeit less common) that HPV could be picked from non-sexual sources like doctor exam tables or medical instruments. Again, it seems odd, but at this point, perhaps more plausible in my mind that I picked it up from a colonoscopy (I have a number of family members who have had colon cancer, so I’m screened early because of some of the odd symptoms), some like source, or the past assault. To get even more personal, I've had anal itching that, in hindsight, started a year or two after the incident described above. It’s the reason I went to the doctor recently. Others have treated the itching with steroid creams, but it has recently gotten much worse. I now wonder if I’ve had this virus for decades (and perhaps even episodes of warts) without knowing it, but not sure if that’s possible.
I won’t follow up with my doctor for a month, so I have questions:
—Is 25 years absolutely too long for HPV to lie dormant before producing warts?
—is there medical support for what I’ve read about potential other modes of transmission? My doctor doesn’t seem aware of it (though I haven’t yet had the opportunity to follow up with him), but he is also quite a bit older and from what I’ve read, the research is pretty new.
—is it possible for a biopsy to be wrong (the spot was not clearly identifiable to my doctor or in the form of a wart, more like a white scale)?
—I’ve read that the virus may be fought off after a couple of years in most cases, but not by everyone. I’m assuming it could also surge and go into remission periodically if I’m among the 10% who were unlucky enough to be unable to fight it off permanently?
—What are the chances the itching and the warts are related and that this has been going on in episodes for a long time (two decades) without my recognizing it?
—My wife has had regular clear Pap smears, including after our sexual activity stopped many years ago. Is any further testing needed?
—Are there any other potentially dormant STDs for which I should now be tested after all these years?
Again, I think the conventional answers are going to jump to conventional places. My confidence that those can be ruled out is high enough that I don’t even need to ask my wife about potential activity with anyone else, and I wouldn’t be turning to the web for answers if I had been sexually active with anyone else. So, I’m really asking some of the plausibility questions simply to figure out what I can rule out and to determine if I need to take any additional actions to protect my wife or myself. Thanks in advance.
At the age of 13, a homosexual relative raped me. Before I got married (my only other sexual partner in my life), I was tested for HIV because it was the big thing everyone feared at the time, and I was scared that the SOB could have infected me because, in hindsight, I believed he was promiscuous. I was young and dumb and probably should have had another testing for STDs, but I didn’t know any better.
I share about the assault because, frankly, it’s the only thing that makes sense as the cause of today’s news. And yet it doesn’t.
My wife and I are in a monogamous marriage, and I have zero anxiety that she’s had an affair. Even if I were concerned about that possibility from an emotional/trust perspective (I’m not), with many kids and lives/peer groups that are pretty tightly intertwined day in and day out, there isn’t even an opportunity for that to have occurred. I’ve also had zero other sexual partners, and frankly, I have low testosterone, which serves as a sad but pretty powerful inhibitor for sexual intimacy in our marriage for 10 years.
From what I understand, 25 years between the assault and the occurrence of warts would be quite a stretch for HPV to lie dormant. I’ve read some articles that say recent studies are suggesting that it’s viewed now as being likely (albeit less common) that HPV could be picked from non-sexual sources like doctor exam tables or medical instruments. Again, it seems odd, but at this point, perhaps more plausible in my mind that I picked it up from a colonoscopy (I have a number of family members who have had colon cancer, so I’m screened early because of some of the odd symptoms), some like source, or the past assault. To get even more personal, I've had anal itching that, in hindsight, started a year or two after the incident described above. It’s the reason I went to the doctor recently. Others have treated the itching with steroid creams, but it has recently gotten much worse. I now wonder if I’ve had this virus for decades (and perhaps even episodes of warts) without knowing it, but not sure if that’s possible.
I won’t follow up with my doctor for a month, so I have questions:
—Is 25 years absolutely too long for HPV to lie dormant before producing warts?
—is there medical support for what I’ve read about potential other modes of transmission? My doctor doesn’t seem aware of it (though I haven’t yet had the opportunity to follow up with him), but he is also quite a bit older and from what I’ve read, the research is pretty new.
—is it possible for a biopsy to be wrong (the spot was not clearly identifiable to my doctor or in the form of a wart, more like a white scale)?
—I’ve read that the virus may be fought off after a couple of years in most cases, but not by everyone. I’m assuming it could also surge and go into remission periodically if I’m among the 10% who were unlucky enough to be unable to fight it off permanently?
—What are the chances the itching and the warts are related and that this has been going on in episodes for a long time (two decades) without my recognizing it?
—My wife has had regular clear Pap smears, including after our sexual activity stopped many years ago. Is any further testing needed?
—Are there any other potentially dormant STDs for which I should now be tested after all these years?
Again, I think the conventional answers are going to jump to conventional places. My confidence that those can be ruled out is high enough that I don’t even need to ask my wife about potential activity with anyone else, and I wouldn’t be turning to the web for answers if I had been sexually active with anyone else. So, I’m really asking some of the plausibility questions simply to figure out what I can rule out and to determine if I need to take any additional actions to protect my wife or myself. Thanks in advance.
Male | 39 years old
1 Answer
Dr. C. Marlo Baird
Preventative Medicine Specialist | Public Health & General Preventive Medicine
Cherry Hill, NJ
Warts are incredibly stubborn little things & the genital variety can come back after being removed. it sounds like your flat white version would have been easy to miss, & it is very definitely possible it has been around a very long time. The crucial part is to have total removal, & check up that it is still gone a year after it is "totally gone". The vaccine would be indicated also, there are many, many different variant types.
