Today’s episode is about HPV dormancy, involving a question I frequently get from patients: Does HPV ever really go away, or is it dormant and going to reappear again?

I’m Dr. Doni Wilson, and I’m so glad you’re here, because there is so much misinformation about high-risk HPV that the confusion is creating more risk for women and men when it comes to HPV-related cancer. 

I’m here to break those myths and give you the facts, so you can make real decisions to move forward and protect yourself. I’m sharing this based on over 26 years of clinical experience as a naturopathic doctor and midwife, helping thousands of women clear HPV to negative — and keep it negative for long periods of time, including cases that have been negative for more than 15 years at this point.

The Problem with the Word “Dormancy”

Unfortunately, the term “dormancy” is still being used in doctors’ offices, and women are being told that HPV is dormant and may never go away, or could become positive at any point. The problem with this terminology is that it leaves women in a state of fear. 

If you’re told a virus is dormant, it make sense that you would feel constantly afraid it will recur, cause abnormal cells, or turn into cancer — and that there is nothing you can do about it. That kind of hopelessness creates stress and anxiety, which perpetuates the risk of high-risk HPV.

I consider the term “dormancy” to be outdated and even harmful because it leaves people thinking they have no power over their situation. That is simply not true. The research shows, time and time again, that the human immune system and microbiome can clear high-risk HPV fully — not just to dormancy, but to fully undetectable DNA. 

Even in cases where women have been re-exposed to the virus, they are not testing positive to HPV and are not developing abnormal cells. In fact, research shows that 90% of people are able to clear HPV. The word the research uses is “clear” — meaning it’s gone. So why are we still talking about dormancy?

Three Ways HPV Can Exist in the Body

Based on years of reviewing research and clinical cases, the way I currently understand HPV is that can exist in three possible states in the human body.

1. The first state is detected and active. Modern DNA-based testing is highly sensitive and can confirm whether the virus is present. When HPV is active, it can go into the nucleus of our cells and modify them, essentially hijacking them and causing changes that can lead to cancer. If HPV remains detected for more than two years, it is considered “persistent,” meaning the body hasn’t cleared it.
2. The second state is fully cleared — not detectable, not active, not able to cause abnormal cells or cancer. That is our goal. And for me, “cleared” also means that even if you are re-exposed, your immune system remembers how to protect you and prevents the virus from establishing itself again.
3. The third is an in-between phase, which researchers call “latency.” This is when the virus may not test positive, but it hasn’t fully cleared either. It can reactivate under stress — whether emotional, physical, or chemical stress. You often only find out it was in this latency phase retrospectively, when a test comes back negative and then positive again a few months later. 

When I see a woman consistently test negative across multiple tests, spaced over 6 months to several years, even during periods of stress, that tells me the virus is truly cleared — not just latent.

The Vicious Cycle That Keeps HPV from Clearing

When HPV keeps coming back — going from positive to negative and then positive again — it usually means there’s an underlying vicious cycle working against the body’s ability to clear the virus. And it’s rarely just one thing. It’s a complex combination of factors.

The cycle typically starts with stress exposure. It doesn’t have to be extreme — it could be everyday life stress, relationship stress, job stress, or unresolved stress from childhood. Research has shown that childhood stress, including emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse, is associated with increased risk of cervical cancer. 

Stress lowers immune function and disrupts cortisol levels. When cortisol is too high or too low, the immune system doesn’t function optimally — and this doesn’t show up on standard blood work, so it often goes unaddressed.

Stress also disrupts gut health, causing leaky gut and microbiome imbalances. Research shows that gut inflammation increases inflammation throughout the body, including in the vagina and cervix. These changes increase risk of persistent HPV

On top of that, hormone imbalances — such as elevated insulin, and/or imbalanced estrogen or progesterone during pregnancy or menopause — affect vaginal health. The vagina has more estrogen receptors than anywhere else in the body, so when estrogen shifts, so does the balance of lactobacillus, the healthy bacteria that protect against infections like HPV.

Nutrient deficiencies are also a key factor. If your diet is causing inflammation or depleting critical nutrients, your immune system simply won’t have what it needs to clear the virus. 

Symptoms, such as fatigue, anxiety, headaches, weight changes, skin issues, digestive problems, frequent infections, are often signs that the vicious cycle of stress is already in motion.

Breaking the Cycle and Clearing HPV

The good news is that this cycle caused by stress can be broken. I can guide you to identify what’s making you susceptible to HPV using specialty lab testing for cortisol, leaky gut, your gut microbiome, vaginal microbiome, and nutrient levels — and use targeted natural approaches including diet, stress recovery, nutrients, and herbs to address each piece.

Most conventional practitioners are trained to offer procedures or surgery to remove abnormal cells, but they’re not trained to address the virus itself using natural methods. Even naturopathic and functional medicine practitioners may not be aware this is possible, unless they’ve completed my certification program, where I teach my full protocol to clear HPV.

What I want you to know is that women are able to clear HPV to negative. Why would anyone settle for dormancy and a lifetime of fear, when full clearance is possible? That’s why I’m here — to inspire you with that possibility and give you the tools to achieve it.

HPV is a whole-body situation, not just an issue in your vagina. 

If HPV is present and not clearing, that is a message from your body — your immune system is struggling, and something beneath the surface hasn’t been identified or addressed. 

But here’s what I want you to hold onto: Every single one of the susceptibilities to HPV can be tested for, addressed, and resolved. You are not powerless in this — quite the opposite. By asking the right questions and doing the right tests, you can take real, meaningful control of your health and give your immune system exactly what it needs to protect you.

The standard medical system doesn’t run the right tests, and most practitioners aren’t trained to interpret and act on the results. But that doesn’t mean your options are limited — it means you need the right guide. I’ve helped patients around the world clear HPV and go on to feel better than they had in years, because when you rebalance your whole system, everything improves — your energy, your sleep, your mood, your resilience.

If you’d like to learn more, join me over at doctordoni.com. You can download my HPV Recovery Guide, which is a free PDF. You’ll see all the success cases of women who’ve been through this process and found freedom from high-risk HPV so that you can have hope that it’s possible for you too. I see women achieving it every day.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office. My team would be happy to connect with you and help you know what your next best step is to free yourself from HPV. My team can also help coordinate shipping worldwide. You don’t have to figure it out on your own. Click here to set up a call with my team.

If you’d like to get a better sense of my approach, I welcome you to join my next free How to Get Rid of HPV online workshop where I help you to create a plan to get HPV out of your life for good. 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.

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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 eight susceptibilities with live, group support, and access to testing and vaginal suppositories.

Thank you so much for joining me for this video. 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.

Reference: Maglennon GA, Doorbar J. The biology of papillomavirus latency. Open Virol J. 2012;6:190-7. doi: 10.2174/1874357901206010190. Epub 2012 Dec 28. PMID: 23341854; PMCID: PMC3547330.

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