Hi, try not to worry, i had an abnormal smear 8 years ago, i was diagnosed cin3 . I had letz treatment to burn cells and regular smears for 3  years, and all been clear since.

My daughter had her first smear at 25 and she was also cin3, i took her to hospital for same treatment and she has had clear smears since. I dont know if either of us had hpv , all i remember them telling me is they grade cin1 meaning abnormal but could mean not enough cells to test, cin 2 slight changes, cin3 is a higher change but not cancerous yet, i hope that helps 

Debee

Hi Hmounei and welcome

I hope I can manage to reassure you a little on this. The HPV virus causes changes to cells, so if you’ve ever had abnormal cells at any time, you have HPV. Most of the population who have ever been sexually active will have come into contact with HPV, and for most it will never cause any issues, but sometimes it can. The main thing is that you do not have abnormal cells at the moment, and keeping on top of your screening is the best thing you can do, along with maintaining a healthy immune system to try to keep the virus dormant/inactive. 

Lowgrade abnormalities can clear themselves, and it seems like this has happened for you if you did not have any treatment for them last time. Your results are amazingly common, so try not to worry and just make sure you attend all of your screening appointments. 

Hi Debee

Anyone who has, or has had, CIN has the HPV virus, although it is only fairly recently that this has been tested for at screening appointments. As you say, CIN is not cancerous, and and any areas of abnormality can be removed before they may turn more serious. 

Hi Minska,

thanks for this- so I am right in thinking even though I did not test positive for hpv last time, I had hpv because I had abnormal cells?

can't abnormal cells just be caused because they fancy it or is that not the case?

hopefully my screen next year will come back ok!

Hi again

No, cells don’t become abnormal for no reason...unfortunately the reason for abnormal cervical cells is the HPV virus. When you tested negative the last time, the virus would have been dormant, but already had done some damage while it was active. HPV can clear in the sense it can go dormant, but there is no cure for it as such-you can’t take a pill and get rid of it for example. All you can do is keep healthy, and keep it dormant and hopefully your next screening will be clear.