Dr. Danny--Oral Warts Question--Redux
 

Dr. Danny,

This is a question directed two 1) your professional experience and 2) your professional opinion.

What is the percentage of oral warts to genital warts?

Does the wart virus find it easier to pass from genital oral rather than genital genital, or voce-versa?

Is there anything one can do in teh way of pre-oral to reduce the chance of oral warts, other than a condom (H202 wash, alchoihol wash, etc., or lubricant of some sort?

I realize there are many variables I am not including, such as, perhaps, oral warts do not show themselves in the mouth as often as they do in other areas--if that is even true--and a slurry of other variables. I understand, in some degree, the difficulty here regarding variables and what we see or what gets reported. Another example: The penis isn't nearly as likely to show warts, but can pass them, as the rectum or vagina area due to the virus being aneorobic (the penis being more saturated in oxygen). So give it a go, with the caveat that there are too many variables to make scientificlly solid answers.

Thanks

I hate being asked questions I don't have decent answers for...

First off, oral warts are extremely uncommon. Genital warts are certainly not uncommon. If anything, I see more genital warts than I do acute STDs.

I am not aware of anything that would increase the resistance of a mouth or other oral membranes to an HPV infection. That being said, all the cells of the mouth are shed very quickly. Burn your mouth on hot pizza, and it hurts like hell, but by the next day, you are healed. It is my guess that once an HPV hooks onto an oral epithelial cell, odds are pretty good that the cell is going to be shed long before the virus goes on to do its thing. Don't quote me on that, just my educated guess. And again, as I said above, oral warts are very uncommong, penile or vaginal warts are not

Next, warts are neither aerobic or anaerobic. Technically, they aren't even alive. The above terms refer to an organism's ability to produce energy utilizing oxygen as an intermediary molecule. Warts don't do any metabolism on their own, so oxygen tension on/in penis or vaginal membranes probably doesn't enter the equation. But if we are getting technical, the mouth is a pretty anaerobic place, believe it or not. And a pre-menopausal, estrogen enhanced vagina is aerobic. We have to worry about anaerobic infection coverage when we treat oral infections, but generally speaking, vaginal infections are infrequent because of the oxygen loving bacteria in there protect against the anaerobes. When women do get infections, they tend to be of the anaerobic type, because something broke down.

Moral: A little pussy might scratch, but they don't bite. Be nice, and don't you bite either.

Hope this relaces a little confusion with more confusion.

Dr D

Yes, I thought that would be something like what you would say. I read somewhere that warts like to show themselves in and around the the vagina and anus more than the penis. Can you confirm that? Of course taht doesn't mean warts are not on the penis and passable, just that we don't see them.

Also, a girlfriend of mine caught warts from her male partner. She was upset over it and her doctor told her that she could understand being upset over it, but that 4 out of 5 sexually active females have them. Can you confirm that?

Last, like you said about teh mouth shedding before teh virus can establish itself, is taht anyway to wash teh penis to help reduce the chance that the wart virus will take hold?

Thanks again.

PS--God dammit, where is the nanotechnology that will hunt these bastart viruses down and clean us out!!!?? Can you imagine a nonvirus sexual world? Talk about a revolution.