In rare cases, warts may appear years after the infection. HPV can remain latent in some people for years or decades before developing warts or cervical disease.
Many people infected with HPV never get warts. If warts do develop, they usually come within a few months. But sometimes, they show up years later.
The reactivation risk may increase around age 50. This is dangerous because of HPV's link to head and neck, cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile and anal cancer. It is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US. The findings may mean that women need to continue routine screening after age 40.
One can conclude from this study that the risk of oncogenic HPV reactivation may increase after the age of 50 years and that reactivation contributes to a large fraction of HPV detection at older ages, compared with the fraction resulting from new HPV infections.
After a person has been infected by HPV, it may take one to three months (or longer in some cases) for warts to appear. Some people who have been infected never get warts.
You can get HPV by having vaginal, anal, or oral sex with someone who has the virus. It is most commonly spread during vaginal or anal sex. It also spreads through close skin-to-skin touching during sex. A person with HPV can pass the infection to someone even when they have no signs or symptoms.
In females, they can occur around the opening to the vagina, on the cervix (opening of the womb) or around the rectum. The warts often occur along with other vaginal infections. They can grow rapidly, especially where there is heavy sweating or moisture. They may also grow faster during pregnancy.
HPV can lie dormant for years
Although the virus often heals on its own, in other cases, it lies dormant in the body and can trigger cancers years after infection. In fact, cervical cancer from HPV commonly takes 10 to 20 years or more to develop.
And, according to a 2013 study, you can develop HPV after age 50 when a virus that was dormant for years "reactivates" decades later.
Other factors that may contribute to or help trigger a recurrence of HPV include the use of certain medications that can impair the immune system (e.g., immunosuppression drugs), serious illness, surgery, or HIV infection. The truth is, experts are still not entirely clear about recurrence of HPV.
Those who said they were depressed or believed they had high levels of stress also still had an active HPV infection. HPV usually clears up on its own, but this study is really the first to indicate a link between stress and persistent HPV infection.
HPV has a 'dormancy' period, which means that the virus spends some time in our body without causing any harm, this is usually a couple of years but can stretch to decades. When HPV is dormant it can't be detected by a test, but it can become active later which is when it would be picked up in cervical screening.
Warts can come back after you have managed to get rid of them. This may happen weeks, months or years after they first appeared. You can try and prevent this by keeping yourself and your immune system as healthy as possible by eating well and exercising.
HPV generally goes away on its own without causing any health problems. If it does cause warts, it can take months for them to show up. HPV warts on or around your vagina, cervix, or anus might go away, stay the same, or grow in size or number.
By age 50, at least 4 out of every 5 women will have been infected with HPV at one point in their lives. HPV is also very common in men, and often has no symptoms.
It's important to remember that being diagnosed with HPV after menopause doesn't necessarily mean you contracted it after menopause, because the virus can lay dormant for years or even decades and then become active later in life. But, older women can contract HPV.
“HPV infection is very common and it's estimated that over 80 percent of sexually active adults, ages 18-65, have been infected with at least one strain, even if they never knew it,” says Dr. Goodman.
While HPV doesn't come back after clearing completely, it's difficult to know if an infection has actually been resolved or is simply dormant. Additionally, while you're unlikely to be reinfected with the exact same type of HPV, you can be infected with another strain.
There's not a safety issue past age 45. We just aren't sure how much the vaccine will help men and women who are past that age, because so many of us have acquired HPV by that point, and because it takes many years for cancer to develop after acquiring the virus.
About 30% of genital warts will disappear within four months of their initial appearance. Most genital warts will recur within three months of completion of initial therapy, even if therapy was followed correctly.
Genital warts are common and are caused by certain types of HPV. Genital warts can be annoying, but they're treatable and aren't dangerous.
HPV infection is very common. Sometimes HPV infection causes visible warts within a few weeks of infection, or they may take months to appear. However, many people who have been exposed to the virus do not develop visible warts because their immune system keeps the virus under control.
Women Don't Need to Feel Ashamed About HPV
“Anyone who's ever had sex may have been exposed to HPV,” says Trimble, adding that she wishes she knew how to get rid of the unnecessary stigma associated with the disease. “Raising awareness can give you choices, and knowing you have choices is empowering.”