Did you just get your pap smear results back showing that you’re testing positive for high-risk HPV? In this video, you’ll learn what the results really mean – and what to do next.

Maybe your doctor mentioned that there are some abnormal cells, and they’ve told you to either wait and come back in three, six, or twelve months to see if it gets worse. Or perhaps your doctor is already talking about doing a biopsy, procedure, or surgery to remove abnormal cells. No matter what the situation, it’s a reason for concern because now you have information saying there’s a virus in your body that has the potential to cause cancer. You don’t want to just wait around and see if it gets worse – you want to do something about it.

I’m Dr. Doni Wilson, a Naturopathic Doctor, Professional Midwife, and Clinical Nutritionist. I’ve been helping women with abnormal pap smear to heal their cervix, and prevent cervical cancer as well as vaginal cancer, for over 25 years. I was originally trained to do primary care, but I saw that there was a huge gap in women’s healthcare. I saw that women need access to help to address HPV virus and prevent it from causing abnormal cells.

I’ve made a very conscious decision to completely focus my practice on helping women whose doctors are telling them that all they can do is wait and see if it gets worse or recurs. Doctors are telling women there is nothing they can do to get rid of HPV, when my patients are able to get negative HPV and pap results. 

I’m here to help women with everything you can do to prevent cervical cancer. I do this both locally in the New York – Connecticut area, and around the world, because women can learn and implement my protocol to fight high-risk HPV and reverse abnormal pap smear results from wherever you are.

Importance of Understanding Pap Smear and HPV Results

In this guide, I want to start by helping you understand your pap smear, biopsy report, and HPV results because I find that an important part of the healing process is for you to understand what’s going on in your body. I know that your doctor, gynecologist, midwife, or whoever did the pap smear for you likely didn’t explain what your results mean. They may not have even given you your results.

First, I always recommend that you call the doctor’s office and ask them for a copy of your results. Your results are ultimately your legal information, so you should have a copy of your results. And this way you can track your results over time. That is the first part of becoming your own best health advocate.

Ultimately, you are in charge of your body and your health. The way I see it, you’re going to a medical provider for a test or procedure to provide information to you so that you can make decisions for your body and your health. It’s not up to your provider to make the decisions – it’s up to them to provide information. But a lot of times providers are not providing enough information because they’re in a hurry, and maybe they have training but don’t have time, or they simply haven’t been trained to provide this information.

Most providers are not trained in nutrition, clinical nutrition, herbal medicine, or how to use natural therapies in general to protect you from high-risk HPV virus. It’s no surprise that they’re likely not telling you about what you can get rid of HPV because they never learned that it is possible.

Pap and biopsy results tell you about whether abnormal cells are present on your cervix. The abnormal cells are reported on the scale of severity. It is a spectrum – it’s not black and white. It’s not either abnormal or not. It’s a gradation from mild to moderate to severe. It’s really important to know the cells are mild, moderate, or severe because that’s going to influence your decision-making process about what you can do right now to help prevent it from progressing.

Unfortunately, I see too many women who contact me saying they wish they would have found me sooner – that they had an abnormal pap or positive HPV six months ago or twelve months ago, and the doctor said just wait and see if it gets worse. Then six months later it got worse, or twelve months later the abnormal cells are progressing to more severe, and they wish they would have done something about it sooner.

In my mind, it’s never too early to be proactive to protect yourself from high-risk HPV because it’s absolutely possible for the human body to clear high-risk HPV virus. The research shows this very well – it’s well documented. 

How to Get Tested for HPV and Cervical Dysplasia

When you go in to get a pap smear, your doctor is actually going to do two different tests at the same time – the pap and an HPV test. Right now, as of 2025, the most common way that women are being tested for high-risk HPV virus is when you go in for a pap smear. Your doctor will do a pap smear which is a screening sample of the cells on your cervix, and at the same time, they’ll order an HPV test.

In years past, doctors didn’t always do an HPV test, but now the gynecological guideline in the U.S. is for the doctor to test for high-risk HPV virus at the time of the pap smear depending on your age. I think they should be doing a high-risk HPV virus test from the time you become sexually active until the rest of your life, but the current guideline is to test for HPV starting at age 30 until about age 70. 

Now doctors are even doing a high-risk HPV virus test before they do a pap smear because we now know that high-risk HPV is associated with 99% of cervical cancer. So if you test positive for high-risk HPV, then there’s reason to look at the cells on your cervix and find out if they are being affected by HPV.

The pap smear is completed by inserting a speculum vaginally and then taking a sample from your cervix. A spatula or brush is used to slough off cells from the face of the cervix and right inside the opening of the cervix. Then a pathologist looks at the cells under a microscope and can see what the cells look like.

What happens with high-risk HPV virus is the virus has the ability to hijack cells. It can literally go inside your cells and can go into the nucleus of the cells. It’s called a DNA virus. When it enters the nucleus of the cells, it starts to change the cells to gradually look more and more like a cancer cell. When we look at the cells with a microscope, we can see if they look like they’ve been affected by HPV.

When you go in, your doctor should do a pap smear of the face of the cervix and the inside of the cervix, called the endocervical canal. They should do also a high-risk HPV test which tests for the fourteen types of HPV strains that are associated with cancer risk. If they see abnormality on the pap smear or HPV test, that’s when the doctor may talk about doing a biopsy of the cervix, which is called a colposcopy.

What Your Pap Smear Means

When you get the pap smear and HPV results, you should see four things on your report. 

First, it should say that it was satisfactory for interpretation, meaning they got a good sample. Second, it should say that they see that the endocervical cells are present. As I mentioned, we need to see the cells from the face of the cervix and inside the cervix. If they didn’t get those cells, they should really repeat the pap smear. Third is whether they saw any abnormal looking cells. Fourth is whether they identified HPV.

The HPV testing that’s available now is very sensitive, so they can actually identify the virus based on its DNA – its genetic code is what they’re looking for. They’re looking for the actual presence of the virus, not antibodies to the virus.

Here’s an example test result: it says adequate satisfactory sample, but the endocervical zone says “not identified,” so this should actually be repeated because they didn’t get the endocervical zone. The third thing is it’s going to say whether there are abnormal cells. In this case it says “atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance,” or what we refer to as ASCUS. That means the cells look a little bit different than healthy normal cells.

It sounds complicated, right? Atypical cells of undetermined significance. But essentially ASCUS means that the cells look inflamed. The important thing to understand about this type of result is that it might even be caused by something other than HPV. Atypical squamous cells can be from a yeast infection, BV, or low estrogen – there are multiple causes. So this is not always caused by HPV.

That’s why it’s important to look at the fourth part of the report: HPV DNA high-risk detected. This tells us that there is HPV present. It doesn’t tell us exactly which of the fourteen strains, but it tells us that at least one of them is present.

It’s important to keep in mind that each lab has a report that looks different from another lab. So don’t be surprised when you look at your results – the format’s going to look different, but we’re looking for those key pieces of information somewhere in their format. They don’t have a standardized format, but they do have standardized information that should be present on the report.

I encourage you to write it out for yourself – what are those four pieces of information and what does it show on your results? Now you can create your own tracking method. You might even want to put it into a chart or system where you can keep it on your computer or in a file so that you can keep track of what your results are over time.

Understanding Medical Terminology on Pap Smear Results

I want to go through some of the medical terms you might see on your report because these are pathology reports, so they’re going to use a lot of scientific terminology. Some of it sounds scary, but it’s actually not scary.

The word “benign,” for example, is a word that means normal healthy cells – that’s what we want. So benign is actually a good thing. If you see the word “squamous cell,” that just is the name of a normal cell type, so that’s not a problem – that just means they’re looking at the right cells on your cervix. “Epithelial cell” is a good thing too – that’s the name of the cells that line the inside of our body.

When it says “intraepithelial lesion,” the word “lesion” means there’s an issue. If you have a lesion on your skin, it means there’s a sore, so an intraepithelial lesion means that there’s an abnormality in the epithelial cell. It’s not telling you anything specific about it at that point – it’s just telling you there’s something abnormal.

The word “dysplasia” is a way of saying abnormal – the word “dys” in Latin is for abnormal and “plasia” is cells, so dysplasia means abnormal cells. The words “malignancy” and “neoplasia” mean cancer. So what you might see in your results is “no malignancy present,” which means there’s no cancer present. Or you might see “neoplasia” or “carcinoma.” Carcinoma is another word for cancer, so in that case we know the cells are more severely abnormal.

The word “atypical” means the cell looks inflamed. A cell can look inflamed for many reasons, so atypical just means that the cell looks reactive. Sometimes the results will say “reactive cells.” You may also see the term “koilocytosis,” which means the cell looks like it’s inflamed and reactive, and that could be caused by the HPV virus.

Remember, it’s all on a gradual scale from normal to progressively more abnormal or severely abnormal cells.

The Range of Abnormal Cells on a Pap Smear or Colposcopy

The range of possible cells on the cervix starts at one end with normal cells. Next comes ASCUS, which I mentioned is simply an acronym for atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance, which means inflammation.

After ASCUS, is low-grade abnormal cells or mildly abnormal cells. Low grade or LSIL is older terminology. Newer terminology for the same mildly abnormal cells is CIN 1. When you see the “C,” that’s representing the cervix, so we know they’re looking at cells from the cervix. The “IN” or “IL” means it’s an intraepithelial lesion – an abnormality in the cells.

Abnormal cells progress from CIN 1, or low-grade, to CIN 2, which is moderate, to CIN 3, which is at the higher end of the range of severity. So it goes CIN 1, to CIN 2, then CIN 3. CIN 2 and CIN3 are considered high grade, or HSIL.

There’s a really important distinction to understand: there’s a line in the sand, so to speak, between low-grade and high-grade, and that line in the sand is telling us whether we need to be more proactive about removing the abnormal cells. If the cells are mild or low-grade – if it’s ASCUS or CIN 1 – then your doctor is not likely to talk about doing a procedure to remove the cells. They’re more likely to say come back in six months and see if it gets worse.

Once it crosses that line and the cells are showing as CIN 2 or CIN 3, which are both considered high-grade abnormal cells, now the doctor is likely to start talking about needing to have a procedure to remove those cells. The doctor may mention removing the cells with a LEEP (or LLETZ procedure) or potentially a more invasive procedure, such as removing part of your cervix, or a surgery to remove your cervix and uterus, which is known as a hysterectomy. That is because at that point the goal is to remove the cells before they turn into cancer.

If it progresses past CIN 3, that’s when it may be referred to as “carcinoma in situ,” which is right before it turns into cancer, or “carcinoma” or “adenocarcinoma,” which are cancer cells. At that point, your doctor is definitely going to talk about surgery, but they’re also going to talk about cancer treatment.

I want to mention that it’s possible for abnormal cells caused by HPV can happen in other areas of the body besides the cervix. It could happen in the vagina, in which case the terminology is going to be VAIN, or VIN if they’re referring to cells on the vulva. HPV can also affect cells in the anal area. The first letter changes depending on the location.

Interestingly, HPV virus tends to affect the cervix before other areas. It’s very interesting as a virus that it tends to affect the cervix first. Rarely do I see it affect the vaginal cells before it affects the cervix. It can happen, but most times it’ll affect the cervix first, which is why we’re focusing on doing the pap smear first.

When looking at a diagram of the abnormal cells, you’ll notice that normal cells of the cervix are round and pink. Cells that are between CIN 1 to CIN 3 are more abnormal in shape and the nucleus of the cells is a darker color. That’s what a pathologist is looking for when they look at the cells with a microscope. 

While your doctor is anticipating that the cells will progress to more abnormal in shape and color, my goal is to help your cervix heal from abnormal cells back to normal cells. I see time and time again that the cervix can heal. Your body can slough off abnormal cells and grow new healthy cells. I want you to know that’s possible, and your doctor is not likely to tell you that.

Treatment Options and Healing Approaches for Abnormal Pap Smear Results

Let’s talk about what you need to do to heal your cervix depending on the severity of abnormal cells. How do you get the healing to happen? 

If your report shows ASCUS or CIN 1, which is low-grade, your doctor is not likely to talk about doing any kind of procedure. They are likely to say come back in six months.

I want you to know your cervix can heal from mildly abnormal cells. I have a whole protocol to support your body to heal your cervix by making new healthy cells. That protocol includes diet changes, lifestyle changes, as well as supplements. The supplement protocol I recommend is strategic and based on research and clinical experience. It includes nutrients, herbs, mushrooms, and other natural products that help your whole body and your microbiome to heal. 

My protocol also includes vaginal suppositories that contain nutrients, herbs, and probiotics to support healing of your cervix and in your vagina because that’s where the virus is located. We need to help your vagina be as healthy as possible to protect you from HPV. That is what makes it possible for your body to push the virus out and prevent it from coming back again. I definitely recommend using the vaginal suppository regimen I developed if you have ASCUS or CIN 1 and you’re testing positive for HPV.

Now, if it is showing CIN 2 or CIN 3 either on your pap and/or your biopsy, we also need to help your body get rid of those cells. You could go to the gynecologist, and they will likely recommend doing a LEEP procedure (in some countries they call it a LLETZ procedure). This procedure removes the abnormal cells, and it can cause some scar tissue on the cervix. It’s important to know that the procedure doesn’t kill the virus, so the abnormal cells could recur.

If you already had a LEEP or LLETZ procedure, then the doctor might start talking about doing a procedure called a conization or cone biopsy or cold knife, which is when they remove part of your cervix. It’s a more advanced procedure than a LEEP.

The other thing your doctor may mention, especially if you’re over age 45 or 50, is a hysterectomy to remove the uterus and the cervix because the doctor is trained to think that if you’re over childbearing age, that you don’t need your uterus. 

The problem with that strategy is, even when you do a surgery to remove the cervix and the uterus, it doesn’t remove the virus. So you still need to get pap smears, and the virus could then decide to affect vaginal cells and cause abnormal cells vaginally. I talk to women all the time who have had that happen. It is extremely frustrating to have had a hysterectomy due to HPV, and to then experience abnormal cells vaginally caused by HPV. 

A lot of women I’m hearing from are saying, “Even though I’m over 50, I want to keep my uterus. I don’t want to just have a hysterectomy.” More and more women are saying, “What else can I do to avoid having surgery?” I agree with you – we only want to have surgery if we absolutely have to.

Another option if you have CIN 2 or CIN 3 that I want you to know about is a natural approach called escharotic treatments. There are not very many practitioners who are trained to offer escharotic treatments. Your gynecologist is not trained about escharotics because it is a treatment using herbs and nutrients. I was trained to do escharotics over 30 years ago because I’m trained as a naturopathic doctor and midwife.

I find that escharotic treatments are very effective at removing abnormal cells (CIN2 and CIN3) and escharotics doesn’t cause scar tissue or damage to the cervix. Escharotics classically consists of ten treatments over about six weeks. It’s more time-intensive than a LEEP, and it’s not covered by insurance, so it’s an out-of-pocket cost, but it does allow you to help your cervix heal and avoid a procedure.

If your results have crossed that line into more advanced – more severe CIN 2 or CIN 3 – that’s when we would consider escharotic treatments for the cervix. Escharotic treatments are not used in the vagina, and if it’s more severe than CIN 3, so if it’s carcinoma, we’re not going to be able to do escharotics. That’s why it’s so important to catch the abnormal cells and take action before they turn into cancer.

Whether you choose to do a procedure to remove CIN2 or CIN3, or escharotic treatments, I recommend following up with the vaginal suppository regimen I designed. The vaginal suppositories contain nutrients, herbs, and probiotics to help your body heal, to address the virus, and to prevent a recurrence. 

Most important point: When you do a procedure or surgery to remove abnormal cells, you still need to address the HPV virus, otherwise it has the potential to cause abnormal cells again. And the standard medical system isn’t going to help you address the virus. 

When I work with patients who have cancer – cervical cancer or other kinds of cancer caused by HPV – I help them address the HPV virus in order to prevent a recurrence of the cancer. There’s so much we can do to help protect you from the HPV virus. There are natural approaches to get the virus to negative, and stop it from causing abnormal cells, and prevent it from coming back again in the future.

Addressing the Root Causes of HPV and Cervical Dysplasia

Here’s an example case of a woman I helped who is age 54: “I want to thank you for all your support. I have good news to share. I got a new colposcopy and it came back negative. Your protocol worked and helped me learn a lot about my body. Thank you so much, Dr. Doni.”

That’s what’s possible when you focus on healing, prioritize yourself, get working with a practitioner who can help you to be proactive in a very strategic way to understand where you’re starting from and what are the best next steps for you to help your body heal and protect you from high-risk HPV virus.

I believe that cervical cancer is preventable because of the cases I’ve worked with. Time and time again, when I guide women through the process I developed, and then they go back in to be rechecked, we see that their cervix is healing, and the virus goes to negative.

The time frame that takes varies based on the person. I’ve seen some cases that went to negative within two to three months of starting the protocol, and sometimes it takes even a year or a little longer than that. It really depends on how well we can help you to implement the diet changes, lifestyle changes, supplements, and whether you address the root causes of why your body wasn’t clearing HPV.

It’s one thing to say, “OK, we need to just take some supplements to fend off HPV.” Yes, we can do that, and I can guide you with very effective clinical doses. But ultimately, I find it is essential to ask: why is the virus there in the first place? Why isn’t your body protecting you? Have you been exposed to a lot of stress or trauma? We can help you heal from stress and trauma. Are you having digestive issues? Because we know that when there are gut issues like leaky gut and imbalances in the gut microbiome, that’s going to affect your vagina too.

How about your hormones – thyroid hormone, estrogen, insulin, blood sugar levels? We’ve got to help get those all balanced as well because that influences your body’s ability to protect you from high-risk HPV. So does any exposure to toxins, antibiotics, and other types of medications. We need to help address all of that so that your body can do its best job protecting you from high-risk HPV. All of that is absolutely possible to address. 

In the process of addressing the root causes, you become healthier overall. If we heal your gut, we heal your hormones, we help your immune system, we address any nutrient deficiencies – now you’re going to feel better, and your body’s going to protect you from high-risk HPV. It’s a win-win all around.

Most of all, I want you to know that it’s possible, and I’m here to guide you. I know how hard it is to find someone to help, so I want you to know that I’m available to help you from wherever you’re located. I help women from around the world. There are ways for us to get on a Zoom call so I can guide you. I can review at your diet, I can look at your supplements, I can understand what’s happening in your body, and help you to know how you can protect your body from high-risk HPV virus.

Please know that you’re not alone, and you can heal, and you likely are not going to find this information from your doctor’s office. So it’s time for you to get a second opinion, step outside of what the standard medical system is saying, and take your health into your own hands in order to protect yourself from cancer caused by high-risk HPV virus.

Conclusion and Next Steps

I hope this video has been helpful for you to understand your pap smear results and understand what the pap smear means and how the virus is affecting your body. I hope you also feel empowered to know that your cervix can heal and your body can protect you from high-risk HPV. I believe that cervical cancer is preventable.

Now that you understand your results, here are your next steps:

First, get a copy of your test results from your doctor’s office if you haven’t already. Create your own tracking system to monitor your results over time – this is a really important way for you to be proactive and an advocate for your own health.

Second, understand where you are on the scale of abnormality so you can make informed decisions about your treatment options. Whether you have ASCUS, CIN 1, CIN 2, or CIN 3, there are proactive steps you can take rather than just waiting to see if it gets worse.

Third, consider working with a practitioner who can guide you through a comprehensive protocol that addresses not just the symptoms but the root causes – why your body isn’t protecting you from the virus in the first place. This includes addressing stress, trauma, digestive issues, hormone imbalances, and nutrient deficiencies.

Finally, remember that healing is possible. I’ve helped thousands of women, and I observe that the cervix can heal time and time again. You can reach out to my office, and we can have a call to go over your results and your case. We can talk more about what your needs are and how we can help you protect your body from high-risk HPV virus from wherever you’re located.

If you’d like more help with dealing with an abnormal pap and high-risk HPV, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can start learning more about my approach by watching the Secret to Clear HPV Masterclass – it’s free and available right away.

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Or you can sign up for the next live How to Get Rid of HPV online 5-day workshop where I help you to create a plan to address HPV.

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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.

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Find the top 5 supplements I recommend in the HPV Supplement Bundle here (it is not for during pregnancy).

Or you can begin with the comprehensive Say Goodbye to HPV Program. This group, online program includes video modules and live calls to support you to implement my full protocol and to address all 8 susceptibilities. I also offer one-on-one patient care. 

Visit my website at clearhpvnow.com to see testimonials. You’ll find videos and stories from women just like you 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. 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.

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.