Hello Kay

Cervical changes usually take quite a long time (several years) to develop into cancer, and it is likely that they would have seen any changes when they did the smear test a year ago.  So although you have had pain after sex for some time I don't think it is likely that this will turn out to be cancer.

As a cancer nurse I am not especially knowledgeable about how they treat genital warts, but there is a good section on the NHS website here   about them, from this information it looks like there are a number of ways they can be treated depending on how they are affecting you.  It looks like they may be able to treat them by freezing them or possibly doing similar procedures to what they might need to do if you had cervical cell changes.  It is worth noting that the strains of HPV that cause warts are not the same as the ones that lead to cervical cancer, so having warts should not make it more likely that you might have cancer.  However, it is possible that you can have more than one type of HPV at the same time which would explain why your HPV testing came back positive last year.

I know it is frightening and unpleasant going through all of this but if there were changes on your cervix I think it is very likely that they would have picked them up last time you were seen, and it would be unlikely for cancer to develop so quickly.

I hope this is helpful

Martin