There is no cure for HPV, but 70% to 90% of infections are cleared by the immune system and become undetectable. HPV peaks in young women around age of sexual debut and declines in the late 20s and 30s. But women's risk for HPV is not over yet: There is sometimes a second peak around the age of menopause.
If you're over 30, your body can still clear HPV, but it's less likely at this point. Your doctor may want to perform more testing, like a Pap (if you didn't get one with your HPV test) to see if you also have abnormal cervical cell changes in addition to a positive HPV test.
There is no cure for HPV, but there is a vaccine — Gardasil 9, which is approved for those 9 to 26 years of age. It helps prevent six types of cancer, including cervical cancer.
In another study on women aged 30–65 years the clearance was 41% with 2.7 months between test one and test two [13]. It has previously been shown that an HPV infection persists longer in women older than 30 years compared with younger women [27,28].
Most people who become infected with HPV do not know they have it. Usually, the body's immune system gets rid of the HPV infection naturally within two years.
Around 90% of HPV infections clear within 2 years. For a small number of women and people with a cervix, their immune system will not be able to get rid of HPV. This is called a persistent infection. A persistent HPV infection causes the cells of the cervix to change.
HPV goes away on its own and doesn't cause health problems in many people. For most people who have a healthy immune system, HPV will clear itself within one to two years.
Vaccination is not recommended for everyone older than age 26 years. Some adults ages 27 through 45 years might decide to get the HPV vaccine based on discussion with their clinician, if they did not get adequately vaccinated when they were younger.
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.
If you've been diagnosed with HPV, you can still lead a relatively normal life. However, you need to protect yourself and any other sexual partners you have as you do so: Use condoms: Using condoms when having sex is essential to reduce the risk of transmitting 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.
For 90 percent of women with HPV, the condition will clear up on its own within two years. Only a small number of women who have one of the HPV strains that cause cervical cancer will ever actually develop the disease.
Don't panic.
In most cases, your body is able to fight HPV on its own, and the virus will go away without causing any health problems in one or two years.
For most people, the virus will be suppressed by their immune system within a few years and won't turn into cancer. So we test women under 30 with the Pap test only to see if their cervix is undergoing unusual changes that could become cancer.
The older you get, the greater the chance that an HPV infection is the yearslong, harmful kind. To better catch those cases, today what's called co-testing is increasingly common for women 30 and over — a Pap-plus-HPV test combination. If the results of both tests are negative, women can wait five years to test again.
Although most people clear HPV within 2 years, the virus can stay in your body for many years – even decades – without causing any problems. That means you may never know you had it. In some people, HPV can show up on your cervical screening results or start to cause problems years later.
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.
HPV can clear up naturally – as there is no cure for the underlying HPV infection, the only way to get rid of HPV is to wait for the immune system to clear the virus naturally.
HPV vaccination is not recommended for everyone older than age 26 years. Some adults age 27 through 45 years who were not already vaccinated might choose to get HPV vaccine after speaking with their doctor about their risk for new HPV infections and possible benefits of vaccination for them.
HPV Vaccine Age Limit: You Might Not Be Too Old — What You Should Know. The HPV vaccine was originally approved for females ages 9 through 26. Now, adults up to age 45 can get vaccinated.
Most men who get HPV never have symptoms. The infection usually goes away by itself. But, if HPV does not go away, it can cause genital warts or certain kinds of cancer. Talk to your healthcare provider about anything new or unusual on your penis, scrotum, anus, mouth, or throat.
It seems to vary from person to person. Some people clear their HPV infections within a few months, while others can have dormant HPV for decades—possibly the rest of their lives.
Why do my cell changes keep coming back? The most common reason for cell changes to come back would be your immune system not getting rid of high-risk HPV. We don't yet know why some people can clear HPV and others can't.
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.