[Question #14016] Genital wart transmission

1 months ago

Hello, not proud of it but have conducted in a couple of incidents with married men. The first I did not know they were married.

He gave me oral for about 3 minutes and that was it. I cleared my genital warts two months before that with no recurrences. I am worried about his risk of oral HPV and then the chances of him passing that onto his wife via oral to her.

Secondly I had a one night stand unprotected. Again , warts cleared a couple of months prior. Obviously this is more risky but what would you say the chances of passing this on is? And then him passing onto wife? Do transmission risks decrease with no visible warts and two months time passed?

Thank you very much

Edward W. Hook M.D.

1 months ago

Welcome back to the Forum. I'm sorry that you continue to worry about the possibility of genital wart transmission. It is statistically likely that, if unvaccinated, each of your casual partners had been infected with HPV in the past- either from their wives of from prior partners. Persons who have had HPV in the past are at reduced risk for acquistion by the same strain of HPV that they have previously been infected with. Further, as I explained in our last exchange, while there are not precise estimates of how often, the majority of single exposures do not result in infection.

To elaborate further, following resolution of genital warts and with the passage of time persons are far less infectious for partners than person who have untreated warts.

In addition, as I believe I've already indicated, HPV and in particular the types that cause visible warts do not "like" to infect the oral cavity. When exposed, genital-genital contacts of far more likely to transmit infection than through oral-genital infection.

I hope this information is helpful. While I applaud your concern for your partners, I really think that you worry more about your HPV infections than you need to . EWH

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1 months ago

Thank you.

But aren’t they more susceptible as have only had one partner for years? I’m more worried about the one night stand.

Thanks

Edward W. Hook M.D.

1 months ago

There are no data on this however immunity is typically longstanding. I would not think they’d be particularly susceptible. EWH---