HPV Vaccine...are YOU Protected?

This topic is the original reason for the birth of my blog. I recently attended a very informative conference that included a segment titled “Health Disparities and Vaccines.” While this topic will be the subject of a future blog, I wanted to take the time to educate all my beautiful minority women on the HPV vaccine and hopefully reduce your disparity!

So let’s just get down to it. How many of you have gotten the HPV vaccine? Of those of you who haven’t…why not? Well there may be a number of reasons, most of it can be blamed on the entire epic fail of a campaign called “One Less.” We all remember those commercials and ads. Anyway, that also can be a topic for a later post.

Well if you haven’t, it might not be too late. The vaccine is recommended for women ages 13-26. The vaccine has been found to be most effective around the ages of 10-14. However, most women contract an HPV infection before their 25^th birthday, so in my opinion, it is still somewhat beneficial to get vaccinated before turning 25.

Moving on, did you know there are different types of HPV vaccinations? Now bare with me, this gets a little complicated. We have HPV #2 (manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline) and HPV #4 (by Merck).

The Pros:

HPV #4 not only protects against HPV Types 16 and 18 (one of the high risk cervical cancer related types…look at my last post if you’re confused), but also against HPV Types 6 and 11, which can cause genital warts.

HPV #2 does not protect against the genital warts but after 7 months of administering the vaccine it will essentially produce more sexy soldiers against HPV Types 16 and 18 than HPV #4. So in theory, it is suppose to be a more potent vaccine against HPV Types 16 and 18 than HPV #4.

The Cons:

There are none specific to either vaccine, but in general both may cause local injection-site pain, swelling, redness, nausea, and fever. You must also wait 2 months after being vaccinated to get pregnant.

So my conclusions, GET VACCINATED! Although there is no clear choice on which HPV Vaccine # you should receive, the choice honestly depends on the nature of protection you desire.

Clearly and simply, EVERY woman is at risk of contracting some form of human papillomavirus, and if we have a solution, why not take it? Of course, the choice is yours. EDUCATE yourself and LIVE the most responsible life you can J

P.S. This has been a hot topic of debate around my circle of besties, so if you have any questions please don’t hesitate!