I self diagnosed a single GW about two months ago, it is at the base of my penis, and more on the top of my scrotum.  It was white and rough to touch, slightly raisedd.

Your concern for your partners' health is admirable. However, he is not at sigificant risk from this event. And if there is a potential transmission risk, it goes back a long time. Genital warts typically appear 2-12 months after catching the HPV infection causing them, but the infection probably is active and transmissible most of that time. So any partners you had for quite a while, maybe up to a year, also could have been exposed. However, the large majority of gen who have sex with men have HPV and almost all have been infected several times; and the wart-causing HPV types are among the most common anyway, so your partner(s) probably have already been infected. They may now be immune to the HPV type causing your wart. In any case, in people who have been multiply exposed over the years, no single additional exposure makes much differenence in the risk they will have any sort of HPV related health proboem.

As for infectiousness of this particular event, oral sex is low risk and few infections are transmitted only by body contact. And as you suggest, since the warts had already been treated, it is likely they were no longer infectious. There's no way to know for sure, but most likely the risk was low.

So my advice is to not let this bother you. I see no need for you mention this to your current or past partners.

I hope this information is helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

I believe my partner in in a monogamous hetrosexual relationship for many years, hence my concern for him and his partner.  Does this information increase his/their risk, or alter you opinion on whether I should discuss with him.

On your note about so many people having HPV, what percentage with HPV get warts? I didnt realise it was so common.

On a general point, your advice seems a lot less less worrysome that the general internet.  I appeciate (and trust) the advice from a medical practitioner, but why such a difference in tone e.g. everything I read on the internet said body to body contact was very contegious

My comments apply to most heterosexuals as well as men having sex with men. The large majority are or have been infected with HPV, several times. Your partner's regular (female or male) partners are not at materially increased risk of HPV problems on account of this single exposure and I still don't see a need to inform your partner.

In the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, the largest ongoing federal health survey, run by CDC), around 10-15% of persons give histories of genital warts. For a variety of reasons related to how the survey is done, this is probably an underestimate, and in Scandinavian countries where actual diagnoses enter national databases, it appears that 20-25% of all persons are diagnosed with genital warts sometime in their lives. So it's an exceedingly common condition.

As for the internet, anyone can enter whatever they want, and there is serious overrepresentation by persons and populations with speciali interests in any particular topic (not exactly a surprise, right? Duh.) For STDs, that means people with or especially fearful of various conditions, and persons and agencies with political of social slants, marketing motives, etc. You'll less likely be misled if you restrict your searches to scientifcallly run or moderated resources, like public health agencies, academic institutions, and the like. For HPV, two excellent and objective resources are CDC (www.cdc.gov/std) and the sponsor of this forum, the American Sexual Health Association (http://www.ashasexualhealth.org/stdsstis/hpv/).

A few questions for my general edcuation if you have time  (as I am surprised by how little I know about this STI)

When is a person most infectious, e.g. if my wart was treated but recurred am I more infections than if it hadn't been treat or indeed if it hadn't yet appeared?

What is the most likely way to transmit, intercourse or just touching in general?

Is it normal to have one single wart, on the scrotum?  Just most of my reading refers to clusters of warts. Or do most people not get warts butcan still transmit?

You said it is unlikely to be transmitted in a single exposure is that true of other STIs (I practive safer sex, so just crious on that one).

In relation to me, for how much longer should I continue to freexe the wart. I still have some rough skin, and some redness from the freezing. Is it dead, or how do I know it is gone.....just let it healand see?

Thanks for all you advice, much appreciated. Please feel free to close the conversation on reply.

If the wart itself seems to be gone and only "rough skin" persists, I suggest stopping treatment then observing the area for a few weeks. If the skin returns to normal, non "rough" appearance, consider yourself cured. If any doubt, return to the doctor who diagnosed you and prescribed treatment.

Thanks for the thanks. I hope the discussion was helfpul. Take care and stay safe.