I Have Had Genital Warts In The Past. Do You

Posted on Thu, 13 Feb 2020

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 Answered on

Last reviewed on

Question : I have had genital warts in the past. Do you think it would be beneficial to receive the hpv vaccine? I didn’t want it to reactivate or make anything worse so I am a little hesitate. I am getting a few opinions but I haven’t heard a no yet. Just wanting to assure it. Thanks

Answered by Dr. Dr. Kakkar (34 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Regarding HPV vaccine

Detailed Answer:
Hello and welcome to 'Ask A Doctor' service.
I have gone through your query and noted your concern.

An HPV vaccine is only against carcinogenic HPV types (16, 18, 31, 33) whereas most genital HPV infection is caused by HPV type 6, 11 which are not carcinogenic.

Therefore, it would be ok to take a vaccine as it would be protected from future infection with cancer-causing HPV types 16, 18, 31 and 33 in case you haven't done it already.

Hope I have answered your query.
Let me know if you need any more assistance.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Arnab Banerjee

Follow up: Dr. Dr. Kakkar (17 hours later)

ok. if you can think of a reason not to get it, let me know. i havent heard of one yet. i just dont want a reverse, trigger, or negative effect. i believe i am about to move forward with this but i havent had one reason not to do this before hand. let me know what you think. thanks for your help and time.

Answered by Dr. Dr. Kakkar (36 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Regarding HPV

Detailed Answer:
hi.
If you can ensure that you can avoid risk of new HPV infection in the future by avoiding high risk contact with people of unknown sexual history then you can avoid the HPV vaccine In other words if you have a single trustworthy sexual partner then vaccine can be avoided. The vaccine doesn't cure existing HPV infection anyways.
Take care

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Kampana