In bed with Anne-Marie: she uses her diagnosis of HPV to raise awareness

The professional in sexology Anne-Marie Ménard suffers from the human papilloma virus (HPV). In addition, When the bad news fell, she gave herself the mission of educating her subscribers.

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Last May. Therefore, Anne-Marie Ménard underwent a PAP test during a consultation for bacterial vaginosis.

“I thought myself a little above all of this. However, I tested negative for the ITSs, everything was fine. In addition, I told myself that my PAP test was going to be correct. Meanwhile, I didn’t really take it seriously, ”she said in an interview 24 hours.

The content designer behind the @AulitaveCannemarie account did not suspect of the phone that she would receive a bed anne-marie: she uses her month. a half later. The diagnosis fell: STRAGE 16, one of those with the highest risk of causing cervical cancer.

“I was said to me,” You have abnormal cells. You have to do a cervical cancer test “,” she says.

She still awaits the result of her biopsies.

How do we react to this kind of news?

“I arrived in my car and broke in sobs. My first reaction was to panic, because you think of the worst. Then, I turned to my community to talk about it. It was spontaneous, very organic, ”she says.

Quickly, she received hundreds of messages and testimonies from women who experienced a situation similar to hers.

An unknown infection – Bed anne-marie: she uses her

Once the dust has come down, Anne-Marie began to google frantically on the subject.

She was shocked to see that she knew so little about HPV, she who is professional in sexology.

“It struck me bed anne-marie: she uses her how much [le VPH est] common. I also understood everything that was possible to live in connection with HPV, ”she says.

Thanks to her research. she learned that a good part of the sexually active people contract infection during their lifetime and that the majority of them the immune system eliminates the virus by itself.

But in a few hundred women each year, the HPV causes cervical cancer – near the quarter dies.

Another discovery: the condom does not prevent the transmission of HPV. Skin to skin contact may be enough to contract the virus.

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An opportunity to educate

All this information, she shares it with her subscribers to make them aware of an infection “which we speak so few, when it affects so many women,” she bed anne-marie: she uses her believes.

“There is something really beautiful in the fact of flourishing sexually, in the democratization of pleasure. But we must not put aside the consequences it can have in our life to be active sexually. You have to inform without feeling guilty, ”adds Anne-Marie Ménard.

There are only two things that she wants her community to retain in all her history: “Go to make your PAP test. your cervical cancer test, and have HPV vaccinated!”

Since October 2024, Quebec has set up a free vaccination program against HPV for people aged 21 to 45, which “will end shortly […] until regional inventories are exhausted ”. .