Conventional medicine is not doing enough to help women prevent high-risk HPV and cervical cancer. 

If you received an abnormal pap smear result and tested positive for high-risk HPV virus, and you’re wondering how worried you should be, whether there’s something you should be doing, and if there’s a risk of waiting to see if it gets worse, then you’re in the right place. I’m going to talk you through the progression from abnormal pap smears to cervical cancer, what the risk is, and share an example case.

I’m Dr. Doni Wilson, a naturopathic doctor and midwife turned advocate for women dealing with abnormal pap smears and high-risk HPV virus. I consider cervical cancer to be one of the most preventable cancers there is, and I want you to know there are steps you can take to protect yourself from cervical cancer and from HPV disrupting your life.

The Statistics on Untreated High-Risk HPV

When you go to the doctor to get a pap smear, and then test positive for high-risk HPV, there may be no abnormal cells at that point, or maybe the cells are mildly abnormal. In that situation, the doctor may suggest a biopsy, which can confirm whether the cells are low grade. At that point your doctor will likely tell you to wait and see if it gets worse—and to come back in six months to a year to see if it progresses.

From your conventional doctor’s perspective, they’re waiting to determine whether you need a procedure or surgery to remove abnormal cells, and there’s nothing they can offer in the meantime. 

The doctor may tell you not to worry because maybe it’s going to go away. In some cases, your body can clear HPV on its own. With low grade cells, 50 to 75% of the time your body will heal without intervention. That’s why the doctor says to wait and see if you’re in that percentage of women who heal on their own.

However, there’s also a percentage of women where it doesn’t heal on its own. I hear from so many women who go back in after six to twelve months and find out they were in that group. Depending on the severity of abnormal cells, about 10% to 20% of women will progress to more severely abnormal cells.

In that case, when you go back in, the doctor will tell you that the abnormal cells have advanced and you’re going to need another biopsy. Depending on the biopsy results, they may recommend a procedure to remove abnormal cells, whether that’s a LEEP procedure, cone biopsy (also known as a conization), or other procedure. 

The doctor is not likely to mention anything you can do to prevent the abnormal calls from recurring again.

The Conventional Medical Approach

Many women go through a procedure to remove severely abnormal cells, which is important—it’s better to remove the abnormal cells before they become cancer cells. The doctor will then recommend that you come back again in another three to six months. At this point you’re on a recurring cycle of going back to the doctor’s office for another pap smear and another biopsy.

The more severely abnormal cells are referred to as CIN 2 or CIN 3—this is before it turns into cervical cancer. The likelihood of low grade cells turning into cervical cancer is considered to be very low. Less than 1% of cases turn into cervical cancer, but that doesn’t mean 0% turn into cervical cancer.

In the United States in one year, there are over 14 million women who test positive for high-risk HPV virus, and up to about 13,000 who find out it has turned into cervical cancer. So it’s considered rare for it to progress all the way to cervical cancer, but it can happen.

You don’t have to wait around in a state of fear and worry and then find out in six months to a year that it has progressed to CIN 2 or 3 and now you need a procedure. 

Depending on your age and the severity, the doctor might recommend a hysterectomy to remove the cervix and the uterus. Even after having a hysterectomy, the HPV virus is still present, and could cause abnormal cells in the vagina or other areas of your body—the vulva or the anal area. 

I hear from so many women whose doctor didn’t tell them it could recur and didn’t tell them there was something they could do to stop the abnormal cells from recurring.

A Real-Life Case Example

I want to share a case of a woman I spoke with today. She went for her annual exam in 2023 and they found that HPV had caused CIN 2, which is considered high-grade abnormal cells. The doctor said she needed a procedure to remove those cells, but she waited another six months. When she went back, it had progressed to CIN 3 within six months.

The doctor said they needed to do a cone biopsy, removing part of the cervix. This is a woman who is 32 years old and still wanting to have pregnancies and children, so she’s started getting worried because removing part of her cervix can affect the ability to maintain a pregnancy. She did the conization, and six months later there were no abnormal cells.

The doctor said to come back in a year. She went back in March 2025, and the abnormal cells had recurred back to CIN 3—back to the same place she had been two years ago. She’s now thinking, “I wish I would have done something to prevent this two years ago. I wish my doctor would have told me it could progress, that it could recur, and that there’s something I could do about this.”

The more severe it is, the higher the likelihood it’s going to progress. If it’s at low grade, the likelihood of progressing is 10% to 15% of cases. If it’s at high grade, the likelihood goes up to 20% to 30% of cases. The higher the grade—like CIN 3—the greater the likelihood of progressing to cancer, with a 1% to 5% increased risk of cervical cancer.

The Limitations of Conventional Medicine

Removing the abnormal cells is important, but that doesn’t stop the virus from causing abnormal cells again. 

When in fact, there are many things you can do to prevent HPV from causing abnormal cells, but your doctor is not likely to tell you about that, because they are not trained in that approach. Medical doctors are not trained in prevention or how to help your body protect you from HPV. They’re not trained to look at the root causes of why your body’s not protecting you in the first place.

They’re not trained in nutrition, herbal medicine, homeopathy, gut health, microbiome, nutrient deficiencies, hormone imbalances, or the effects of stress and trauma. That’s not in their training, but that is in the training of a naturopathic doctor, like me. That’s how my training is different.

I learned the standard conventional approach—how to do a pap smear, when to do a biopsy, and so on. Then I saw that, while it’s testing and removing abnormal cells is important, it is lacking in helping women to prevent cervical cancer and prevent the need for surgery. That’s why I focus on a functional medicine or naturopathic medicine approach to HPV.

Addressing the Root Causes

I start by asking: Why is your body not clearing high risk HPV to negative? Why is your body not protecting you from HPV? Why are abnormal cells able to progress? Remember, it doesn’t progress in everybody, so if it does progress, there has to be a reason. We have to start asking why.

I guide women to address the eight most common root causes or susceptibilities. One is stress and trauma—if you’ve been exposed to a high amount of stress or trauma in recent years or any time in your life, that increases your risk of HPV persisting and causing abnormal cells. We need to help you recover from stress and trauma, and that’s actually possible.

There are so many effective tools to help your body recover, starting with looking at your stress hormones—cortisol and adrenaline—and re-optimizing them. We help you regulate your nervous system using different forms of therapy, mindfulness, meditation, and more that helps your nervous system heal from trauma and eliminates the impact of stress and trauma on your immune system.

We need to look for nutrient deficiencies. This is one of the most common susceptibilities I find because so many women are deficient in nutrients without realizing it. It’s not being tested in regular blood work. Maybe you’re getting tested for vitamin D, but you might also be depleted in iron, B vitamins, minerals, and more. We need to do the right testing because those nutrients are essential for helping your immune system protect you from HPV virus and helping your body make healthy new cells on your cervix.

Then there are hormones—estrogen, progesterone, insulin, cortisol. We need to know what your hormones are doing. If they’re imbalanced, we can rebalance them. If your blood sugar is imbalanced, we can rebalance that. If your estrogen and progesterone are either too high or too low, there are many natural approaches to help re-optimize those hormones.

For women who are peri and postmenopausal where their estrogen is dropping, we need to help you get appropriate, safe, and effective replacement of your hormones to protect you from HPV without increasing any risk. The research now demonstrates there are safe and effective ways for women to optimize estrogen and progesterone levels without any increased risk of breast cancer.

For women who are menstruating, we need to find out if you have high estrogen and how well you’re detoxifying estrogen. If that’s not going well, we can address that with natural approaches—diet changes, lifestyle changes, herbs, nutrients. The research exists and clinical studies show it works.

There’s also gut health. We need to look at how well you’re digesting your food, absorbing your nutrients. Do you have leaky gut? How’s your microbiome? The gut microbiome influences the vaginal microbiome, and if the vaginal microbiome is not protecting you, then you’re susceptible to bacterial infections, yeast infections, and HPV infections. We can do something about that, even if you’ve been exposed to antibiotics or had your microbiome fully disrupted.

We’re exposed to toxins in our air, food, and water, and those toxins affect our immune system’s ability to protect us from high-risk HPV. We need to identify the toxin exposure and help you detox safely and effectively. We also need to look at medications that could be making you susceptible to high-risk HPV.

We need to look at your diet. Many foods increase susceptibility, including gluten and sugar. Many people consume gluten, sugar, and alcohol on a daily basis. Those foods are associated with a depleted immune system and disrupted microbiome. What food you’re feeding yourself will help protect you from high-risk HPV and prevent it from progressing, recurring, causing you to need surgery, and causing cancer.

Alternative Treatment Options for HPV

The case I shared—now she’s in a situation where her doctor says she needs another cone biopsy to remove abnormal cells, which can further put her ability to have a successful pregnancy at risk at 32 years old. She started thinking, “There’s got to be another way. I’m too young for this. I want to be able to have a successful pregnancy, and the doctor’s telling me they have to do another surgery and that’s the only option.”

There are other options. When it’s CIN 2 and/or CIN 3, there’s an alternative to LEEP and conization called escharotic treatments. That’s something I was trained in over 25 years ago and have helped thousands of women complete successfully to clear the CIN 2 and 3 and heal their cervix completely without needing surgery, without scar tissue, and without damage to the cervix.

But we don’t just do escharotic treatments. We also do the full approach to address the HPV virus at the core so that it doesn’t recur again. To the extent that we don’t do that, we’re putting ourselves at risk of recurrence.

Don’t Wait: Take Action Now to Prevent Cervical Cancer

Your life is worth it, your body is worth it, your future is worth it. The future you is going to thank you for taking action today. Don’t wait. Every woman I talk to in this situation says, “I wish I would have done something sooner. I wish I would have found out about Dr. Doni sooner. I wish I would have found your protocol sooner.”

They dive in 100%. They read my book, “The Master Your Stress Reset Your Health,” and start implementing the protocol I suggest every day because they realize it’s a matter of fighting for their life. CIN 3 could turn into cancer, and that procedure could lead to another surgery that could affect what they’re planning for their future.

If you’ve already gotten to that point, I can help you. If you’re already at CIN 3, and already fighting for your life and your future, reach out to me. Even if you’re already at cervical cancer, I can help you. You’ll be in care for cervical cancer, and I’m going to help you address the HPV virus so it doesn’t recur again.

If you were recently diagnosed with HPV or mildly abnormal cells, I encourage you to take action now. There are natural approaches, natural solutions, that will help you protect yourself from cancer and help your whole body heal. 

We’ll help you to address nutrient deficiencies, hormone imbalances, effects of stress, and when we do that, not only will you be able to clear HPV and heal your cervix, but you will also improve your fertility and start preventing other health issues like autoimmunity, weight gain, gut issues, skin issues, heart disease, and diabetes.

We’ll do that by getting to the root cause of the problem. If a weed is growing in the yard and you just pick the leaves, the weed comes back because the roots are still there. We have to remove the roots if we want to get rid of the weed. In this situation, HPV is the weed. If the root is there, it’s going to keep making more weeds. More weeds are going to grow no matter how many times you do surgery and remove the leaves or flower of the weed because the root is there and it’s going to come back.

We have to get to the root cause. We’re going to dig and we’ve got to be detectives and say, “I’m going to make this my priority.” Let’s make you a priority. Your health is a priority. Your life is a priority.

You Are Worthy of Care

For a lot of women, we might not feel that we’re worthy of that. If that speaks to you, I want you to know that I believe you’re worth it. I believe your life is worth it. Your purpose, your passion, your future is worth it. Even if other people have not told that up to this point in your life, I believe there is a part of you that does know you are worth it.

You are worthy of getting support. You are worthy of preventing this from getting worse. You are worthy of making this a priority and doing something about it now before it gets worse, before it recurs, before you’re pushed up against the wall with no other options.

No matter where you are in this situation, like the woman I talked to today, we’re going to help her heal her cervix and address the HPV, get it to negative so that she can go on to having a healthy pregnancy and whatever she wants to be doing in her life, being free of HPV, free of the worry of HPV, free of the worry of cervical cancer, free of the worry of surgery.

That’s what I see in my cases—the cases of women I’ve been working with for over 25 years, case after case where we see that can happen, that they can heal. We can actually get to the root and get the HPV out of there and have your body protecting you going forward.

I know this is a lot to take in because the standard doctor’s office isn’t telling you this, but healing is possible. I have on my website videos from women who’ve been through this process, so you’re hearing it from them as well so you can know for yourself that this can work for you too.

I’m going to put a link below where you can click to apply for a free phone call with my team so that we can review your test results with you and you can learn more about how you can work with me one-on-one or with a practitioner who I’ve trained in my protocol or in a group program with other women who are on the same path.

Can you imagine a community of women who are all working together, instead of ignoring HPV, to figure out how to solve HPV and get it to go to negative and stay negative? If you want to be in a group of women who are saying “enough is enough,” it’s not okay with me to wait until I need surgery again—I know I want to do something about this now—no matter what age, no matter how long you’ve been dealing with it, no matter where you are in this situation, you can join this group of women who are warriors standing up for themselves and taking control of their own body and their health and their life.

This is true no matter where you are in the world. I don’t think that time zone or location should stop you from getting help, so no matter where you might be listening from, I can help you because there are ways for us to communicate by Zoom or using Wi-Fi. You don’t have to be in a local area in the same time zone as me for me to be able to help you.

If you’d like more help with dealing with an abnormal pap and high-risk HPV, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I welcome you to join me for more information about what you can do to increase your chances of clearing HPV and preventing HPV-related cancer, as well as improving your overall health. 

I offer an online group program specifically to address high-risk HPV, and I work with patients one-on-one as well. I help women from around the world because I see that this is an issue women are facing everywhere, and I consider HPV and cervical cancer to be preventable.

You can start learning more about my approach and initial steps you can take by watching the Secret to Clear HPV Masterclass – it’s 90-minutes long and available right away.

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Or you can sign up for the upcoming How to Get Rid of HPV FREE online workshop where I help you to create a plan to get HPV out of your life for good.

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From there, you might choose to join the Heal HPV Kickstart Program, for the initial steps of my protocol, including diet changes and supplements, over the next 30 days. Find the top 5 supplements I recommend in the HPV Supplement Bundle here (it is not for during pregnancy).

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Or you can begin with the comprehensive Say Goodbye to HPV Program, which is 3 months and includes everything you need to implement my full protocol and address all 8 susceptibilities with live, group support, and access to testing and vaginal suppositories.

Visit my website at clearhpvnow.com to see testimonials – video after video and story after story of women who have healed from HPV – to help you know that it is possible for you too.

My team can also help coordinate supplement shipping worldwide, and we can work within your budget to find the right starting point. You don’t have to figure it out on your own. My team and I are here to help guide you step by step. Click here to set up a call with my team.

Thank you so much for joining me for this video on helping you support your body to clear HPV. I’d love to hear from you – please like, comment, share, and subscribe, if you haven’t already. I look forward to having you join me for the next episode of How Humans Heal.

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Disclaimer: This specific article and all other Content, Products, and Services of this Website are NOT intended as, and must not be understood or construed as, medical care or advice, naturopathic medical care or advice, the practice of medicine, or the practice of counseling care, nor can it be understood or construed as providing any form of medical diagnosis, treatment,  natural HPV cure, or prevention of any disease.