HPV, Vaccines,new girlfriends --- Tell me how you would handle this situation:?

Question

I am 25 years old, and I have HPV (genital warts). There is now an HPV vaccine for women. The vaccination consists of three shots givn over a period of 6 months. (assume it will take the full 6 months for the vaccination to be effective)

I'm not sure how I should handle starting a new relationship with a girl now. (Especially) Since there is now a vaccine, for me not to tell a girl about this all and expect a meaningfull relationship would work out at all.

So here are my questions:
1.) How should I tell the girl about this all
2.) How would you handle not being able to have sex with the girl for 6 months while waiting on vaccinations.
3.) If you were starting a new relationship with someone and things are going really well so far but they told you about this, would you hang in there or just ditch them? Usually when I'm starting a new relationship, I'd be having sex with them pretty soon, before we've established a long term relationship.

Answer 1

Hi. I'm a 26 year old girl who got HPV from a friend I slept with once. Here is some onfo you should know. Literally most people have had or will have some strain of HPV in their lifetime. Most of the time the symptoms are no big deal. But the crappiest thing is that girls can get cervical cancer from some of the strains of HPV. Not all kinds of HPV, but some. It's a virus, like the flu, which means that it adapts and changes all the time. The vaccine, Gardisil, guards against only 4 of the strains of HPV, not all of them. This means you can get this vaccine and still get most kinds of HPV, including some that cause cervical cancer. The vaccine does not cure you if you already have HPV - you're stuck with it.

You are responsible to tell your sexual partners you have HPV. you could really be hurting them otherwise.

It's not a mini-STD, it's a real problem, like ghonorrea or syphilis or HIV.

You should use a condom.

Girls should be vaccinated to help defend against HPV, and they should get annual pap-tests and the HPV test to watch for abnormal cells on their cervix.

Be honest with her, talk to her about it before you're in bed. believe it or not the conversation will be more comfortable with your clothes on. Bring it up un-related to you first if you want to test the waters. Educate yourself about the disease as much as possible. Ask if she has been tested. You still need to watch out for every other strain you haven't had, yet.

The sexual revolution really screwed us, eh? (j/k)