So worried foreigner... need an advice

ea1991st

Hello everyone! I've been in a terrible crisis in last couple of days. Can't sleep, can't work, can't think normally. I have a feeling I'm doomed, somehow. Let me tell you my story. I am an young adult, almost 27 years old but i've made a terrible mistake in my life, unfortunately. Unfortunately, once again, I've understood that is a mistake in the past few days since I've never heard about the HPV before. 

Here is my story in a brief - I have had different visits on prostitutes (living in Eastern Europe) since I'm not doing well with girls. That's the reason why I'm visiting these type of escort agencies and for a period beetween 2008-2017. I had around 20, maybe 20+ visits at different prostitutes. Always had sex with condom but the worst thing is I gave oral sex to a big percent of them, since I wasn't aware of the HPV. Always thought that oral sex is the safest sex type related to HIV, but it seems my mistake is awful. I made a test for Hepatitis B, Chlamydia and HIV - I'm clear, thankfully. However, as much as I know there isn't a test for HPV (at least for men) and I'm so devastated. What can I do now? What if I'm one of those who are affected by the oropharyngeal disease??? Why I did that? 

What's the best thing I can do from now on (besides stop visiting these places). Maybe I'm so stressed because I live with terrible anxiety and huge stress for more than one year (around 14-15 months) and I guess this pretty much weakened my immune system. Should I visit ENT doctors on a monthly basis or? How can I get tested, please tell me there is a way to do that, or what's the most appropriate regular check up I can make? 

One last things - what are the most common symptoms I must put the red alert on? I have a feeling it's very likely to suffer from that thing someday, so it's better if I can expect it and know what to look for. 

 

Thanks for your patience and time reading my post! Best regards! Hope everyone of you will never get ill of that awful disease or if he already did, he will surely beat it!!! 

CivilMatt

Welcome

ea 1991^st,

Welcome to the H&N forum, it sounds like a series of special events brought you here.

You have not been diagnosed with cancer, correct?  You have no symptoms of cancer, correct?

Your life style, while somewhat loose, does not guarantee HPV related H&N cancer.  For those of us it did, the timeline can be many, many years before it presents itself and when it does it can be extremely subtle.  Even if you are checked for it, it often lies below the surface and is not visible.

Swearing off girls may be a bigger challenge than anticipating H&N cancer (HPV).  If you develop swollen lymph nodes or something funny feeling in your mouth, tongue or throat, have it checked, but be cautiously optimistic.

One thing you can do is try to maintain a top notch immune system, as that is the key to preventing HPV from taking a hold.

Matt

tommyodavey

Too Much Worrying

Don't be thinking about it.  Most everyone either has or has been exposed to HPV sometime during their life.  It goes dormant and may or may not give you any trouble at all.  It's kind of like what they say about cancer cells.  We all have them but it is usually some kind of event like smoking or just plain bad luck that we find out we now have cancer.  Mine came out of nowhere and no doctor can say how I got it.  

Life is too short to be worrying about what hasn't happened.  Stop going to prostitutes and just have a yearly exam if that makes you feel better.  

AnotherSurvivor

And I thought saddles were

And I thought saddles were edgy...

But, there are no formal clinical studies tying oral sex to HPV.  HPV has an incubation period of potentially decades, so an epidemiological study is probably not possible.  I have seen reports tying the book the Joys of Sex to the epidemic, but the epidemic is present in countries where English is not a common language, and the book was never translated into the vernacular (case in point: Iran, a rather conservative country not likely to allow the spread of western decadence).  

Random samples in the U.S. indicate that upwards of 80% of the population commonly carry HPV present in their throats.  With a population of 322 million, that leaves 257,600,000 potential active victims of which 42,000 get treatment for HPV cancer in a year.  No study has ever actually demonstrated that HPV is what actually triggers the genetic shift that creates on oncogene.  None. If and when that causality and trigger mechanism is actually established the researchers achieving that will include picking up their Nobel prizes in their victory lap.   Nor, by the way, has any valid clinical study ever established a link between meat consumption and HPV cancer, tho there are advocates for that hypothesis as well.

My theory, is that with an 80% presence in the population, it is highly probable that the HPV virus would be present, regardless of its role as a causal agent.  I think they took the presence of HPV in cervical cancer, found it in throat cancer, and tenuously theorized a link.  Creative minds took it from there.

Note that I am in no way denying the possibility of causality linked to HPV.  I am not an oncology researcher, tho I would love to find one and interogate them in depth.  My impression is most cancer is currently explained in probabilities, and that direct causal links have yet to come.  Each time they make a break-thru they discover increasing complexity, and that existing theory is depressingly incomplete.   I am, however, going to have chicken tika madras for dinner.   Griswold v Connecticut is reason enough to not discuss my intimate relationships.  

So, Boots and Saddles! Mount up.

ea1991st

Thanks for your support guys,

Thanks for your support guys, you're amazing. Too bad I must meet nice and kind people like you on such a forum Yes, I'm not diagnosed and I can't be sure do I have a HPV (especially a dangerous type) since there isn't a test to men, unfortunately. However, my question is related with the HPV risk since I had an oral contact (giving it) with more than 10-15 different woman, including sex workers. I guess that risk of me having a oral HPV infection is extremely-extremely high, so I hope my body can beat it. Anyway, is it possible to keep HPV in the body, but never develop any cancer out of it? Especially if there are dangerous HPV types in my organism? If I'm trying to maintain high immunity and take certain vitamins or other helpful stuff. I will be happy if someone shares more info about it. I am so deveatated, never knew there is a thing like HPV until couple of weeks ago. Otherwise I would never be involved in so often oral action  

My frustration is that huge because I live in a poor country and having any type of cancer makes you almost a dead man here... even curable diseases (in most developed countries) are still on level of the 20st century here, meaning that mortality is much higher than in the Western world, although that country is located in Europe.... I had a sexual contact with a lady over 40 y/o, around year and a few months ago, and she was without her uterus, meaning that she most likely had cancer surgery (or somehow related). and we all know that woman's cancer in that zone is pretty much related to the HPV. 

AnotherSurvivor

Again, you are asking

Again, you are asking questions where there is general evidence, but not yet a smoking gun.  Absolutely, viruses 'cause' [some] cancers,  and that has been known since the early 20th century.  Behavior that leads to increased contact with viruses 'probably' increases risk.

 The paradox of HPV is it sometimes 'causes' cancer, and sometimes doesn't.  Some viruses lead very quickly to cancer and causality is nearly 100%.   HPV seems content to percolate for decades, until something triggers it.  But then again, maybe not.  While HPV 'certainly' causes HPV cancers, the mere presence of HPV is not indicative that cancer will develop.  The overwhelming majority of the time it won't.  That seems to be a curious way of measuring certainty. The lack of epidemiology compounds confusion, but to conduct proper studies would require tying source to behavior, in my case perhaps DNA from girlfriends 40 years ago in different parts of the world.  Factor in that there seems to be evidence that mouth to mouth kissing can transmit HPV.  You arrive at a huge pool of potential victims, virtually most of humanity, for a desease that fails to infect the overwhelming majority.  The information that sex can cause cancer, but probably won't, doesn't deliver any particular insight.  

Yet, again, that rate of infection seems to be increasing, but not at catastrophic proportions, possibly linked to behaviors that have been part of humanity for millennia. For an additional spin, HPV Head and Neck infects women at about a 30% proportion, well outside the range of the risky oral sex pool. Even more perversely, that growth in incidence is cross-cultural, and global.  The commonality seems to be having physical contact with other humans. Do you feel lucky, and is luck actually even a factor.