Does this mean that the virus (depending on the strain) invades the CNS or PNS?
Herpes, yes. HPV, no.
Chickenpox is a herpes virus. The virus hangs out dormant in the nervous system and sometimes comes back later as shingles.
Cold sores are a herpes virus as is genital herpes. Both come and go often because the virus remains alive but suppressed/dormant in the nerve endings. When you're under stress- running a fever, having a bad cold, stressed out because of school, etc the virus is reactivated and causes another round of sores.
With the exception of the few strains that cause cancer, most HPV infections seem to be self-limiting. HPV is taking over your cells to make more copies of the virus. Once it accomplishes that, it seems to go away in a lot of people. When it doesn't, it is frozen or burned off and that seems to remove the cells that were infected.
When you say 'not well-adapted' what exactly do you mean? Like skin cells? stratified squamous or whatever they may be in the genital/anal area?
Let's contrast this with another virus like influenza. Influenza is highly adapted. It can infect pigs, birds, primates, humans- a lot of different species. It mutates frequently so humans can't get lifetime immunity- you can get the flu several times a year if you're exposed to different strains. Influenza can remain infectious outside the human body and it spreads by casual contact and if there's influenza virus on a surface like pen or a desk, you can get the flu by just coming in contact with it. And influenza doesn't kill the person it infects- it's just looking to use your body to make more virus so that you can infect someone else and start the cycle all over again.
So, we we talk about HPV being "adapted", we're looking at how it is transmitted, how long it can stay infectious, whether it triggers the immune system, whether it stays active in the body for a long time, whether it can stay alive outside the body, etc.
HPV seems to just want to use your skin cells to make copies of itself. It doesn't really want to hang around for years. It doesn't want to get further inside your body and infect other parts of your body- it wants to stay in the skin and hide from your immune system. It can stay alive outside the body for some time. And it very rarely ever kills the infected person like HIV or influenza or measles.
Bi for Older said:
If so, why don't they die after new new skin cells are made? If they don't die after new skin is made, does this mean that that particular strain actually invaded the nerve ganglia (CNS/PNS)??
Well, because new skin isn't made. Your skin cells are constantly dividing which doubles the number of skin cells but every cell is just a copy of the cell that divided. When one of the cells is infected with HPV, the virus turns that cell into a factory for making HPV. The reason that you get a wart is that the infected cells are abnormal and start to reproduce rapidly- making a big lump of abnormal cells that makes up the wart.
Going back to the earlier discussion about different strains and how different people respond differently to HPV... Almost everyone gets a wart on their hands or feet at some time in their life. The wart is there for a few weeks and usually seems to go away on its own after a while. What we think is happening is that the way that the virus takes over the cell also shortens its life or distorts it in a way that it eventually can't reproduce itself anymore. Or it may be that your immune system begins to win the battle and kills off the infected skin cells. So, in time the wart cells fall off and the wart goes away.
In some people though, the cells don't die off on their own and they have a chronic infection where the wart has to be removed- by scraping, freezing or burning.
again, stratifies squamous or whatever the genital/anal area is? (sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable in this area, or any area for that matter)
Skin is made up of very similar structures but the cells in different areas have adapted to be different. The skin on your face is different from the skin on your hands/feet which is different from the skin on your dick which is different from the skin on your butthole.
Different HPV strains seem to have adapted to like a particular type of skin. So, the HPV strains that cause warts on the soles of the feet (plantar warts) seem to like that type of skin cell. The strains that infect the soles of the feet don't infect the penis. On the other hand, the strains that like the skin cells on the penis also seem to like the cells that are nearby on the anus.
This makes sense when you keep in mind that these viruses are being spread by skin-to-skin contact. So, HPV on the hands is more likely to be spread by holding hands or shaking hands. HPV on the genitals is more likely to be spread when a penis goes into a vagina or an anus or when it rubs up against another penis.
okay, so I had cryosurgery, and they have seemed to gone away. Is there any way I could know for sure if the cryo did the job and removed the virus or do I have to play the waiting game and just see if they come back?
Is there any way I could talk to my doctor and take a test to see if I have the precancerous type? According to my derm, there are no tests for HPV for males....
Actually, your doctor is not completely correct. There are tests for HPV and for determining which strain of the virus has infected the patient.
They are DNA tests and they're expensive though.
If you were to have a colonoscopy and the doctor found abnormal looking cells on your anus, he'd scrape them and send them to a lab. This is actually a Pap smear- the same test used to diagnose cervical cancer in women. If the cells on the Pap smear look abnormal on a microscope, they would be sent to another lab for DNA testing to determine which strain was causing the problem.
In the case of your genital warts, they've been burned off which kills the infected cells on the surface of your skin. This should be the end of it. However, if you later have abnormal cells develop at the site where you had the warts, a Pap Smear would be done and the testing to determine what strain it is would be done.
That doesn't happen very often though. The strains that cause warts aren't the same strains that cause cancer. Usually warts go away or are removed and that's the end of it.
This one confuses me. How can you not show sings of infection and shed the virus? do you mean not show signs but still be contagious?
Not all strains of HPV cause warts. The strains that cause cancer often don't cause warts- so there's no visible signs that the person has HPV. Under a microscope, you might see abnormal looking cells but most of us aren't taking a microscope to our partner's penises (although we wish we could sometimes!).
I guess there is no way of knowing exactly what strain I have because there are so many different types. I'm sorry for bomb-barding you with questions but I'm just very curious and you seem to know much about this topic. As a biochemistry major, I'm eager to know more about this, surprisingly, unpopular virus that no one seems to talk about.
Well, here's a few links explaining the testing process if you're interested.
http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/hpv/tab/test
http://health.usnews.com/health-new...ew-hpv-test-to-detect-cervical-cancer-strains
http://www.rense.com/general75/100.htm
https://www.inspire.com/groups/national-cervical-cancer-coalition/discussion/hpv-strain-test/
