Exactly How Many Different Varieties of Hpv Strains are There?
Well, there’s about four major different types of warts, which can be broken up into, Common Warts, Plantar Warts, Genital Warts and Acrochordons. These warts are caused by approximately one hundred different HPV strains. Of these 100, about 30 are the HPV strains which cause genital warts.
And since 30 HPV strains, which can in turn lead to genital warts, is quite a large percentage it can to some extent explain why it’s so easy for anyone who is sexually active, within a non-monogamous relationship, to get genital warts. The definition of non-monogamous here being, if either you or your partner have multiple sexual partners.
It’s also true that if you have multiple sexual partners throughout your lifetime, you’re more liable to contract any one of the genital HPV strains than if you had a lifelong monogamous relationship. In fact the higher the number of sexual partners you have within your lifetime, the higher the risk of your going on to develop genital HPV.
And of these 30 or so HPV strains which do cause genital warts, they can also be separated into two categories, that of the high risk HPV strains and that of the low risk HPV strains. The low risk HPV strains will be the ones which give rise to genital warts. The high risk HPV strains are the ones that can lead to cancer of any of the effected areas.
That’s why especially with recurring genital warts, it’s necessary to be extra vigilant as the HPV infection you have could be of the high risk variety. Although genital warts can be treated or surgically removed, they are only the physical manifestation of the HPV strains. The actual human papilloma virus itself, cannot be cured as there is no cure for it. What is cured then is the wart, and not the virus which will need to be fought off by your immune system.
In the normal course of events HPV strains can linger in a person for a few months or even 1-2 years, it all depends on how strong and resilient your immune system is. That’s why you need to keep your immune system in tip-top shape, to be able to help fight off things as the HPV strains.
And that’s also why some of the treatments (both medical and natural) work on that premise and are geared to shore up flagging immune systems.
This is also the reason why people with medical conditions where their immune system is compromised, pregnant women, or people who have been taking immune suppressing drugs are more susceptible towards the virus and why the HPV strains will also manifest themselves in the form of genital warts more readily on these people.
This isn’t to say that just because you’re pregnant you’ll get genital warts, or just because you have a medical condition with a compromised immune system that you will get genital warts. It just means that you are more susceptible to developing genital warts than people whose immune systems are stronger and more able to ward off an attack of HPV strains.
If you are found to have genital warts, or carry the HPV strains, you might be referred to either a skin clinic or a sexually transmitted diseases center. Your physician might feel that you will get the necessary treatment at either of these centers as they deal with these types of infections on a daily basis.
In fact, for some treatment methods you might have to be referred to one of these centers. This can happen mainly if you need surgical methods to remove your warts instead of topical creams and solutions.
Muna wa Wanjiru is a web administrator and Has Been Researching and Reporting on Curing Genital Warts for Years. For More Information on HPV Strains, Visit His Site at HPV Strains
