I Lived With HPV for 13 Years — Here’s What I Learned

It’s been almost two decades since the beginning of my personal journey, and today I can honestly say that through intuitive eating (because back then I knew nothing about functional medicine or holistic nutrition), avoiding extremes, and living a balanced lifestyle, my body was able to overcome HPV.

It was 2007. I was 19 years old and considered myself to be in “good health” — and by that I mean nothing seriously wrong. I just had a few little things I thought were normal, especially because all my friends seemed to deal with the same issues too: gastritis, constipation, allergies, dizziness, irregular periods, birth control use, and so much more. Then one day, during a routine Pap smear (which I did every year), the results revealed that something wasn’t right. After several tests, I was diagnosed with HPV (Human Papillomavirus), and according to the very alarming gynecologist, I was on the verge of developing cervical cancer. I was completely shocked. His final words stayed with me for years: there was no cure for the virus, no accessible testing in Colombia to determine how aggressive the strain inside my body was, and the only thing I could do was “take care of myself” and hope my body eliminated it on its own. I cried so much that day. I couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. I was in a stable, exclusive relationship, and suddenly I was dealing with an STD. I was so young. There was no ChatGPT back then, no easy way to get answers to all the questions racing through my mind. At the time, I lived with my grandmother, who loved me deeply, but wellness and healthy living were never really modeled around me.
So from that moment on, I made the decision to educate myself and take control of my health. The first thing I did was keep it all to myself because it felt embarrassing and deeply personal. Then I started searching for the magical solution that would finally give my immune system what it had been desperately asking for. Following my doctor’s recommendation, I increased my intake of red foods and began an ovo-lacto vegetarian phase. After years of eating that way, the result was basically keeping the virus stable. I had checkups every four months, but there was no real improvement. Meanwhile, I constantly felt tired, cold, dizzy, and the most noticeable symptom of all: I completely lost my period. Everything seemed to be getting worse. Back to the doctor I went, and this time they found a cyst on my left ovary. The solution? Birth control pills. Honestly, some of the worst months of my life. Irritability, mood swings, emotional sensitivity… it was a lot. Since the pills made me feel terrible, I went back to monthly birth control injections — my “trusted” contraceptive method at the time (I truly believed they were amazing). Because I looked relatively healthy on the outside, no doctor ever suggested checking my hormones or gut health.
Looking back, that would’ve probably been one of the best recommendations anyone could have given me.
Seven years had already passed since my original diagnosis, and I was still stuck in the same place: the virus remained in my body, abnormal Pap smears, colposcopies, ultrasounds, irregular cycles, constipation, and weight loss. I truly believe my healing journey started when I began incorporating small lifestyle changes I randomly learned from a Chinese medicine YouTube channel.

A doctor there talked about circadian rhythms, the body’s internal clock, how each organ works on its own schedule, and how we should nourish our bodies accordingly. Later, I discovered immunological medicine, bioenergetics, functional medicine, and the process of unlearning everything I once considered “healthy” or “fit.”

I returned to eating a full diet that included animal proteins again — but this time consciously and intuitively, without extremes, and prioritizing real foods that came from the earth. I stopped using hormonal birth control, added movement into my life, and focused on enjoying the life I had. My body thanked me in so many ways. One of them was finally clearing the virus I had lived with for 13 long years.

One of the biggest lessons I learned throughout this process was patience — learning how to listen to my body, how to measure and understand it through the right lab work, how to nourish it with real foods, how to give it proper rest, recovery, and sunlight, and how to make the best out of every situation with the best attitude possible, without feeling ashamed of anything.

So if you have daughters, sisters, friends, or loved ones, I hope you remind them to stay consistent with their yearly checkups, including Pap smears and gynecological exams for early detection of any abnormalities, because in cases like this, prevention truly is everything.

We’re here to support one another and build a real community, so if you have any questions or have gone through something similar, we’d truly love to hear your story too.