I'm the same, your immune system can clear the virus. I'm no expert Ive just been reading about it. . I think they may be giving you 3 months to see if it leaves your body. The longer you have it the more chance it has to change cells if its high risk. . It can be in your body for years but supposedly clears within a couple of years. I'm in the same position but I've had biopsies because I have some visual symptomatic changes. What you have to think is, they are keeping a eye on you and checking changes. Try not to worry. 

Thank you so much for responding much appreciated , yeah I had bloods which have came back fine , then went to see gynaecology as I had quite a big bleed last year and had done a transvaginal scan which everything was clear so I'm hoping it's not as bad as I'm thinking . Back in March for another screening . Hope yours goes well too . 

Thankyou. 

Hi Gillian

Try not to be too concerned. They’ll do another smear just to check your cells, but it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong-just that there wasn’t enough to test in the sample and they’ll want to get enough to make sure there are no cell abnormalities caused by the HPV. 

Having the HPV doesn’t mean you will definitely have abnormal cells-the doctors are just being thorough. 

Thank you for your response ,

put my mind at ease a bit. Think just with the symptoms of bleeding etc but my scan came back normal and bloods etc so fingers crossed nothing to worry about x 

Hi and thanks for posting

It's great that the scan and bloods were negative . Abnormal bleeding is not that unusual with a number of different possible explanations and it's good that nothing of concern showed up.

Many people will have a positive HPV on a smear test - with a repeat smear usually taken again after a year to make sure that your immune system has cleared it up.

It's the guidelines to wait for 3 months after a smear has been shown to be 'inadequate', meaning that not enough cells were removed at the smear to be able to have a good look at them under the microscope. The wait is so that the cells in the lining of the cervix can regenerate after some of them will have been removed from the previous smear attempt. An inadequate smear doesn't mean it was abnormal, just that it was unreadable.

Do give us a ring to talk things through if you would like to - on Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

All the best and try and not worry about this if you can

Wanda

Thank you so much for this , 

this has cleared up a lot of what I wanted to know . many thanks 

Gillian