quick question

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

so i'm just wondering...

i have hpv. i got it (or so i think) right around the time i started waxing regularly. i have pretty course hair and every time i'm waxed i always have bumps. is it the hpv or is it ingrowns?

i look at pics and i can't tell if girls are really super smooth or if everything really is digitally retouched. with all the enhancement of porn and other nude photos, it makes you wonder what's normal and whether or not you should look like that... please advise.

Comments

[punk-is-so-dead.livejournal.com]

Do you actually have HPV or are you asking if what you have is an ingrown hair or a wart?

Waxing can cause ingrowns and I think most of that is touching up in porn.

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

i actually have hpv. i guess i'm just trying to distinguish the difference so i know the best way to remedy both situations. every other part of my body is smooth, so it's discouraging to look down and see bumps. looks like a rash. and it makes me utterly self conscious in a bathing suit.

[gabrieceleste.livejournal.com]

You can assume that the majority of the pictures you see are digitally retouched to look like that. It is really easy to let it hurt how you feel about yourself.

I am a little confused. Are you diagnosed with hpv or do you think that you have it because of the bumps when you wax?

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

i was diagnosed with it, but the bumps i have don't look like the pics on the net. those are soo much worse.

[kitty--butler.livejournal.com]

all the times i've looked for pics of hpv on the net, all the pics i've found seem to be the really extreme cases. there don't seem to be many sites showing what the average case looks like.

usually when i get ingrown hairs, if i look carefully i can see the hair - and if i can manage to pull it out with tweezers, then the bump goes away pretty fast. this wouldn't be the case with hpv, i would assume. aside from that i'm not sure how you'd tell the difference, sorry.

[pirogoeth.livejournal.com]

Whenever I shave my vulva/mons, my labia aren't smooth. While I can't say that the rest of the female population on this community also have bumpy labia, I can say that the pictures you've seen are most likely retouched, to make the labia look "normal" (which is actually pretty fake, considering they have to touch up the photos...shouldn't that tell them something about how a normal vulva looks?).

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

ha! seriously! i wait for the day when a bumpy labia is normal.

[starsorstreet.livejournal.com]

I can't say with a lot of certainty that many many females are lumpy bumpies because that is simply life. Men who shave or wax their goodies, same thing :)

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

thanks

[starsorstreet.livejournal.com]

I also want to say that there are also all kinds of people who have HPV (I do not, that I know of) and as far as I'm concerned, that is ok too :)

[disclaimher.livejournal.com]

I don't know what HPV looks like, but I do wax monthly and get bumps or pimple like things from waxing. These are normal for most women who get waxed, and my waxer has mentioned that sometimes exfoliating the area helps to keep them at bay. A warm compress/shower and a few minutes with a srub brush or loofah do wonders.

Most women get them from shaving as well.

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

yeah, my waxer mentioned the sam exfoliating thing. warm compress, loofah, etc. i guess i was looking for something more. i'm thinking about going to a dermotologist just to see. or maybe i'll even give up waxing for a while to see what happens... (although with summer around the corner, that just stinks!)

[robynchick.livejournal.com]

red and rashlike is ingrown hairs!
HPV manifested on the external genitals usually looks like little cauliflower heads of skin. have you been diagnosed by a doctor?

[madtingler.livejournal.com]

i was diagnosed by a doc - had an abnormal pap about a year ago. they've been keeping watch on it - but it's not really a visible cauliflower thing like you describe. if red and rashlike is just ingrowns, maybe i just need to let it all grow out a while! thanks!

[tubesy.livejournal.com]

If it was an abnormal pap, it's fairly likely that you don't have the kind that causes external warts, unless you caught it separately--they are different strains. But you should be really vigilant about paps and such because the abnormal pap-kind can cause cell changes on the cervix which need to be dealt with (though it's not so bad, i've been there.)

[studiouspilgrim.livejournal.com]

yep, they are different strains, so unless you have been diagnosed with warts, you probably "just" have the cervical type. That said the bumps oftentimes look alot less awful than the ones online. If you do infact have the wart strain as well as the cervical type, i would DEFINITLY talk to my doctor about waxing. Shaving can cause the warts to spread, and i think it would be wise to double check if waxing is believed to have the same effect.

[standingtallnow.livejournal.com]

There are a variety of strains of HPV, some cause abnormal paps, some cause warts. I don't think any cause both. While you may have more than one strain, the one that is causing the abnormal pap isn't going to cause warts.

Also, the images on the web of HPV normally are the more extreme cases. I have HPV and my warts never looked like the images I found on the web.

[sevensixone.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to tell you about the bumps, but I can share the little bit of information with you:

A graphic designer friend once told me that just about every professional photograph you see in current media has been digitally retouched, whether it's a photo of a person or an object. Sometimes the retouching is pretty subtle, but most of the time, it's a pretty big change.

Then she showed me this website: http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/index.html

So... if you're worried that you don't look like some girl in a magazine, don't be. She doesn't really look like that either.

[ais-chiq.livejournal.com]

i like that site. nice ^^

[either-or.livejournal.com]

wow...even the bellybutton is airbrushed!

[snowmentality.livejournal.com]

Yup, my boyfriend is a graphic designer and photographer, and says the same thing. For a while most of his work was doing that kind of retouching. I now know that models don't look the way they look in pictures -- and exactly how fake it all is. They use Photoshop to smooth skin, fix noses, fix facial expressions -- even shrink thighs and inflate breasts.

Seriously, everyone should look at before-and-afters like that, or watch a retoucher at work. You'll never take magazine pictures seriously again.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_r0ckintheplaid/]

I have HPV too.. was just diagnosed a week or two ago :/ My bumps are flesh colored and itch to hell. They also occur in spots, not all over but mostly near the clit & anus.

[studiouspilgrim.livejournal.com]

if they continue to cause so much discomfort ask your doctor for some lidocaine, it maid a world of difference for me!!

[valkin.livejournal.com]

I've down a brazilian bikini for years now. In the beginning, I'd get bumps, but after a few years of waxing, I get one or two bumps now. I think regular waxing makes the hair weaker so that could be why it's gotten better for me.

Also, my bumps weren't all ingrown hairs but irritation from being waxed. They were small and covered the area waxed. I also switched from using the regular wax to using one for sensitive skin. See if your salon has that available and try it. Also, if you tend to go between waxing and shaving you'll get more ingrown hairs (I don't know why).