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My first screen after diagnosis was still positive and I took it badly. The second one was clear. Being still positive at one year is inside the normal range rather than a bad sign in itself.

The actual instructions, so you can stop guessing: bedding, towels and recently worn clothes go through a hot wash and a hot dryer cycle. Anything that cannot take that gets sealed in a plastic bag for about two weeks, or dry cleaned.

That is the whole list. They do not survive long away from a body, so the sofa, the carpets and the car do not need doing, and no amount of cleaning substitutes for treating everyone who needs treating.

Seconding this strongly. Go to a pharmacist rather than improvising. It is a two minute conversation and they will not be surprised.

One specific thing worth asking whoever ordered it: how close was the result to the cutoff. Some labs report a value alongside the positive, and a result sitting just over the line is the situation where a confirmatory test is sometimes recommended before anyone treats it as settled.

Separately, for telling a partner, be clear about what you actually have: antibodies, no known site, no history of symptoms. That is a genuinely different conversation from a swab confirmed genital diagnosis, and running them together makes you carry something heavier than your result.

I asked and they did it without any discussion at all. It took about a minute and most services will let you self swab, which made it far less awkward than I had built it up to be.

Condoms reduce transmission but do not eliminate it, because HPV spreads by skin contact and a condom does not cover every area of skin involved. Worth knowing so a condom is not treated as a complete answer.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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