HPV and genital warts symptoms

Most women don’t have symptoms so you can pass HPV and genital warts to your sex partners without knowing it. You are contagious until you have been treated.

When symptoms do occur, they can include:

• Pain, itching or bleeding
• Visible or invisible genital warts. Visible warts are:
  • Skin growths in the groin, genital, or anal areas
  • Some look like flat white patches
  • Some are bumpy

Symptoms usually show up 2 to 3 months after exposure, but can appear as early as 3 weeks after exposure or even many years later.

Diagnosing HPV and genital warts

A doctor can often tell if you have genital warts by looking closely at your genital and anal areas. Sometimes the doctor takes a sample of tissue from the wart for testing.

If you have an abnormal Pap test, your doctor may do an HPV test to look for high-risk types of the virus.

Treating HPV and genital warts

There is no cure for HPV and genital warts but the symptoms can be treated.

Visible genital warts usually go away without being treated but there’s a chance they might spread. There are prescription medicines that you or your doctor can put on the warts. Or your doctor can remove them with lasers, surgery, or by freezing them off.

If you don’t have symptoms and are not worried about how the warts look, you can wait and see if they go away.

Even after your warts are gone, the HPV infection can stay in your body so it’s possible to spread genital warts to your partner even if you can’t see them.

Preventing HPV and genital warts

The best way to keep from getting genital warts—or any other STI—is to not have sex or any skin-to-skin genital contact. If you do have sex, practice safer sex.

• Talk with your partner about STIs. Find out whether he or she is at risk for them. A person can be infected without knowing it.
• Remember, every time you have sex with a new partner, you’re being exposed to all the infections their partners may have.
• Do not have sex with anyone who has symptoms or has been exposed to a STI.
• Use a latex or polyurethane condom every time you have sex to reduce the risk of spreading genital warts, but they do not protect the entire genital area against skin-to-skin contact.
• Be responsible. Don’t have sex if you have symptoms or are being treated for an STI.
• Save sex for later. Delay sex with a new partner until both of you have been tested for STIs.