Post Colposcopy & Result

[ggeeen.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone,

I posted about my HPV+ last month here and I wanted to let you know that you all truly helped me get through with it and come to terms that I do have it.

I had my colposcopy procedure just this Monday (which went better than I expected!) and I got my results from my Dr. today and I wanted to let you all know that it was negative!! I truly was expecting the worse because I did not want to get my hopes up only to be heartbroken if the result was something other than that.

I essentially understand my result, that I do not have pre-cancerous cells. But I still feel that I'm not truly understanding it..maybe I'm still trying to absorb it all. Can you VPer's help clarify this for me? What does this mean for me in the future? I know that just because my result was negative, I still do have the virus. I was told to come back after 6 months and my Dr. told me it will probably go away, but as much I hope that it will turn out that way I don't want to get my hopes for nothing cause there are endless possibilities.

What do I do now? What do I do to maintain my cells from becoming abnormal again? I read somewhere that taking vitamins such as folic acid can help..what are your thoughts on this?

Also to those who had a colposcopy before - -I have a question about the liquid band aid. I was informed to expect dark-coffee  ground-like vaginal discharge, however I haven't had any of that, is this okay?

Sorry so much questions, I feel so silly asking so much but I really would like your input.

Thanks so much again!

Comments

[archangelbeth]

(Just as a note, we're not all ladies -- some of VP's most informative members are female-but-not-ladies, genderqueer, or guys. If you could tweak to something that included them (I like "VP Superstars!") that'd be lovely. O:> )

Basically, what you do to maintain the health of your cervical cells is what you do to maintain your health in general: try to eat a reasonably nutritious diet, take a vitamin if you're not sure you're managing the rest of the nutrition (many people are vitamin D deficient, and D plays a large part in many people's immune system!), and get reasonable amounts of sleep, so that your immune system will be in fine fettle and ready to jump on any HPV it finds and pummel it into the ground.

(Smoking does tend to introduce compounds into your body that make cancer more likely everywhere. If you smoke, it would be better for your body if you could kick the addiction.)

Because HPV isn't a special snowflake virus. (HSV is a special snowflake virus!) It's just a virus. And your immune system is evolved to combat viruses and bacteria. It's actually dang good at it. How many colds and flus have you fought off? So when your immune system is on the ball, it has an extremely good chance of fending off HPV without you necessarily even having an abnormal pap or showing a wart.

You can also choose to use barrier methods during genital-involving sex -- especially with new sexual partners -- to reduce the chances of exposure, or of providing "reinforcements" to an existing infection. (This is a somewhat controversial theory, but I recall that seen it proposed in some studies. If I recall correctly, it went something like: HPV issues clear up faster when people use condoms, versus the controls who continue to have PIV sex without condoms. The speculation is that the HPV gets "reinforcements" so that the immune system can't make significant inroads on the issue. I can dig up the studies again with a little work, I suspect.)

I don't know about colposcopies, though. Sorry!

[sweetchild92.livejournal.com]

studies!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14566832

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYD/is_10_40/ai_n13806938/

[archangelbeth]

That'd be 'em! <3 O:D

[ggeeen.livejournal.com]

Thanks I'll be sure to keep that in mind for future reference :)

And thank you for the advice, since finding out about my HPV I've been trying to be really good with my body- -cut down on my drinking and getting back to exercising. Hopefully my immune system will be good to me!

[atalanta0jess.livejournal.com]

I've had a few colpos, and never had much coffee ground discharge. Just a little bit of black dots here and there. It will come out when it's ready. Once I did have a DIS.GUS.TING blob come out all at the same time. Seriously it was the grossest thing ever. Hopefully that won't happen to you. But I don't think there's any reason for concern if you don't see the discharge.

[ggeeen.livejournal.com]

I think I spoke too soon when I wrote this, that same day not only did I spot but I think I had a full blown period! I don't know if this is normal, but my period wasn't due till next week, so I was really worried..

[atalanta0jess.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry too too much. The stress of the procedure can mess with your period I think. I had a LEEP a ways back, and a few weeks after had the heaviest, scariest period I have ever had in my life. So many clots...I couldn't keep it under control because the clots were filling my cup up so fast. It was really scary. My doctor basically said maybe it was the stress from the exam.

The only caveat here is that if you think it may have been fresh blood as opposed to period blood, it might be worth getting checked out. If it was clearly old blood (or mucusy, like period blood often is) I would worry less than if it was bright red and thin.