This forum has been kind of slow for a while. There is a lot of good advice on here so I encourage everyone to look back at older posts for advice and support. I was correctly diagnosed with genital warts back in January 2012. I apparently had genital warts for almost 6 years prior to that however when I would go to doctors they said it was nothing. I had two bumps for that time. Even the doctor that correctly diagnosed me missed them. At the end of the exam I had to specifically point out the spots and say this is nothing? Once she saw them she said oh those are just a couple of little warts. We will freeze them off and you'll be fine. Well the look on my face must have told her that was news to me and so my journey began.

Genital warts beat you up in many ways. The two main ways is mental and physical. The physical one is obvious, you can see them. The mental one is much harder. When you first get diagnosed you will go through lots of emotional up and downs. You will feel ashamed, embarrassed, happy, sad, disgusted, hopeless, proud, hopeful, angry, and depressed and that will be the first five minutes of your day. You stay on this roller coaster of emotions for some time. This is normal, yes normal. Over time the roller coaster settles down. You come to terms with your situation and you start to be less emotional about it and more practical in your approach in dealing with it.

A couple of things about dealing with this mentally. First off I would recommend you forgive the person who gave this to you. If the person who gave it to you had no idea they have it that is much easier to forgive. However even if the person knew they had it I still recommend forgiveness. You will not forget what they did, and you don't have to have them around in your life, but you can forgive them for doing it. Once you do this you will feel better and the weight on your shoulders will seem less. The second thing to do is forgive yourself. It is easy for us to beat ourselves up daily over this. This is some sort of punishment for having casual sex. You deserved this, God hates you, you are an awful person, etc. It is easy to go down this path. You did something wrong and now you are paying the price. Well I will tell you that is bullshit. You are not an awful person, God does not hate you, and you did not deserve this. I don't care if you slept with a different person every night you still didn't deserve this. Once you find the ability to forgive yourself you will find your self respect will rise and the weight of the guilt and shame will fall away. These two steps of forgiveness are hard to achieve but once you do this a huge weight will be lifted and you will be able to focus on the task at hand, beating hpv.

The next thing you need t do is get a plan. Get a plan on how you are going to attack the warts. The best way I found to do this was to find a good doctor. The key word is good. There are several doctors out there but once you have found a good doctor your stress level will drop because you feel like you have a map of how you are going to treat the warts. If you live in a large city there should be plenty of clinics or doctors to choose from. If you do not have this option you may have only one or two doctors to choose from. If financially you can't afford treatment you may have to look into home treatment. This is usually apple cider vinegar. I did not use this treatment. If this is your plan then the only recommendation I have is be careful. There are plenty of people on here who used this treatment and there are several posts on here about it. I was fortunate, I found a good doctor. However the doctor I see now is not the first doctor I went to. You may have to go through a few doctors before you find the right one for you. If you do not agree with the doctor's treatment, beside manner, or both then do not hesitate to find another doctor. A good doctor should be knowledgeable about hpv and the various treatments. They should be able to answer any questions you might have. No matter how sexual in nature they might be and they should be able to treat you with respect. Every doctor I did go see said the same thing when if came to what is the best treatment for hpv, cryo treatment.

No matter what treatment you choose be aware that the treatment is meant to do two things. One, it is to kill the warts. Second, the treatment stirs up the virus. The hpv virus wants to live, so once it comes under attack it starts to produce more warts. That is why so many people say that there condition got worse once they started treatment. The hope is that once the virus starts to produce more your immune system will go "hey that hpv stuff is bad let's find a formula to stop it." This can take a while. I had to undergo approximately 6 months of cryo treatment then all of a sudden poof no more warts. I have been wart free for 2 years now.

A few things I can tell you about warts. Genital warts will show up randomly. It is not like a jigsaw puzzle so you go well my partner had a wart here and we did it in this position so I will get a wart here and here. It doesn't work that way. You may find some areas will be more prone to warts appearing but it is random. Genital warts want to do three things in life 1) they want to show up 2) they want to stick around and 3)they want to get bigger. The goal, and expectation, is once your immune system get things figured out your warts won't be able to even get to step one. Also, a wart will never have a hair follicle in it, ever. So those pictures we would see as a kid of a witch with a wart on her nose and two hairs in it wasn't a wart. Also warts will look more like a bump than a lump. So warts will look more like they are on top of the skin instead of pushing up from underneath it.

A couple of things to do while you are having an outbreak. During this time the normal reaction is get rid of these things as fast as possible at all costs. But you actually have an opportunity at this time to learn. During this time try and learn all you can about how your body deals with genital warts. Here were some things I learned. Most of my warts showed up at night. Why? I have no idea but it was rare for me to have then show up during the day. Prior to a wart showing up I would get some mild pelvic pain and my left testicle would be slightly sore. I would get some itching and my skin would become very sensitive. It would feel kind of irritated. It was also most uncomfortable for me to sit versus standing or laying down. I have no idea why any of this happens I just know that it did. Virtually every time. So now if I start feeling anything like this I will know that something is going on down there. Just because some of these indicators might happen however does not guarantee that I will have an outbreak. So learn all you can during this time. I believe the more aware you are of this the less stress you will have once you are clear of the virus.

A couple of things I did on my own that really helped me was to start eating healthier. I mean a lot healthier. I eat more vegetables and fruits. I did find that vegetables seemed to have a greater effect than fruits do. I deal with stress better now. Being under stress can have the same affect on your body as being sick. I also get plenty of rest. Typically 8 hours of sleep per night. I take a supplement called activamune. I tried other supplements and this one works best for me. I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol, and I have started working out. In general the best thing you can do is live as healthy a lifestyle as you can. This will keep your immune system up and strong.

I hope this helps. Ultimately have faith that you will beat this. The day will come when you are clear! This is a marathon not a sprint and will require hard work on your part. For several months you will have some very hard days. We all did and still sometimes do. As time goes on those bad days are fewer and far between. I know it is clich but take things one day at a time. Fight as hard as you can today and believe in yourself for tomorrow. Good luck and best wishes.