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Nooooo! I have about 7 warts on my foot. It started out with one that I didn't worry about and now I have seven . Grrrrr they are so ugly and annoying, but I finally started putting the Compound W my mom got me like a week ago on them. Does anybody have any tips for getting rid of them? Oh, and one more question. Can plantar warts spread to your hands and other places? I just want to get rid of them because they're so gross!
~abigail
I had a plantar's wart over 30 years ago...they have deep roots, and do multiply.
The Prep H would have done nothing for me...they had to be burned out (totally painless, ok?).
I am sure that in this day and age there are more advanced ways to do that...but I would look at getting it done by a medical professional. Then it's DONE. :)
I found some stuff on Google:
Treatment
Plantar warts usually go away on their own, but most people would rather treat them than wait for them to disappear. Unless you have an impaired immune system or diabetes or are pregnant, there's no reason you can't treat warts with over-the-counter remedies. But you may wish to consult your doctor for help. He or she may suggest a combination of over-the-counter and office treatments for plantar warts.
No wart treatment works 100 percent of the time. In general, your doctor will recommend the least painful — and least destructive — methods first, especially for children.
Common treatments for simple plantar warts
Your doctor may suggest trying these common treatments one at a time or in combination:
* Salicylic acid. Wart medications and patches are available at drugstores. To treat plantar warts, you'll need a 40 percent salicylic acid solution or patch (Curad Mediplast, Dr. Scholl's Clear Away Plantar, others), which peels off the infected skin a little bit at a time. Apply the solution once or twice each day, being careful to avoid healthy skin, which can become irritated from the acid. In between applications, pare away the dead skin and wart tissue using a pumice stone or emery board. You may need to repeat this process for up to three or four weeks to completely eliminate warts.
* Duct tape. In a well-publicized 2002 study, duct tape wiped out more warts than freezing (cryotherapy) did. Study participants who used "duct tape therapy" covered their warts in duct tape for six days, then soaked their warts in water, and gently rubbed warts with an emery board or pumice stone. They repeated this process for up to two months or until their warts went away. Researchers hypothesize that this unconventional therapy may work by irritating warts and the surrounding skin, prompting the body's immune system to attack. Today, duct tape is commonly used to treat warts, especially for children who may find freezing painful or scary. It's often combined with salicylic acid.
* Freezing (cryotherapy). Freezing is one of the most common treatments for plantar warts and is usually effective, but may require multiple trips to your doctor every two to four weeks. Your doctor can apply liquid nitrogen with a spray canister or cotton-tipped applicator. The chemical causes a blister to form around your wart, and the dead tissue sloughs off within a week or so. Freezing isn't commonly used in young children because it can be painful.
* Cantharidin. Doctors and healers have used cantharidin — a substance extracted from the blister beetle — to treat warts for centuries. Today, this therapy is sometimes paired with salicylic acid. Your doctor paints this beetle juice onto your wart and covers it with clear tape. The application is painless, but it causes the skin under the wart to blister, lifting the wart off the skin. Your doctor can then clip away the dead part of the wart in about a week. However, some doctors are hesitant to use cantharidin because it's not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of warts.
Aggressive treatments for persistent plantar warts
If your warts don't respond to common treatments, your doctor may suggest one or more of these other options:
* Minor surgery. This involves cutting away the wart or destroying the wart by using an electric needle in a process called electrodesiccation and curettage. This treatment is effective, but may leave a scar if not done carefully. Your doctor will anesthetize your skin before this procedure.
* Laser surgery. Doctors can use several types of lasers to eliminate stubborn warts. But laser surgery is expensive and painful and may take longer to heal than do other treatments.
* Immunotherapy. This therapy attempts to harness your body's natural rejection system to remove tough-to-treat warts. This can be accomplished in a couple of ways. Your doctor may inject your warts with interferon, a medication that boosts your immune system's instinct to reject warts. Or your doctor may inject your warts with a foreign substance (antigen) that stimulates your immune system. Doctors often use mump antigens, because many people are immunized against mumps. As a result, the antigen sets off an immune reaction that may fight off warts.
* Imiquimod (Aldara). This prescription cream is an immunotherapy medication that encourages your body to release immune system proteins (cytokines) to help ward off warts. You can apply this cream directly to your warts. Imiquimod is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of genital and perianal warts, but it's also successful in treating common warts and plantar warts.
* Other medications. In severe cases that haven't cleared with other therapies, your doctor may inject each wart with a medication called bleomycin, which kills the virus. This medication is given systemically in higher doses to treat some kinds of cancer. The injections for wart treatment can be painful and can cause rashes or itching. They're not used if you're pregnant or breast-feeding or if you have circulation problems.
Buy some Dial antibacterial bar soap and a good, new, nail brush. Soak the foot in warm water for one minute. Then scrub gently with the Dial soap and the brush for 3 minutes.
Keep a sock on the foot at all times, so you don't get any dirt in there.
Do this AT LEAST 3 times per day, 4 if you can work it into your schedule.
10 days to 2 weeks "should" do it, although I don't know how deep your warts have gotten.
Once the wart is GONE, keep doing this for 3 more days.
This worked for me when I had one, on the bottom of the foot, about 35 years ago.
Dad's foot doctor is also a foot surgeon and he is strongly angainst the use of those freeze and acid over the counter methods.
My husband had really good luck with Dr. School's Medicated discs. His wart was gone within just a few days.
I know in middle school I had one pop up on the web between my thumb and pointer finger. Three more suddenly appeared on my middle finger. They were much smaller than the first one.
I treated (and treated and treated and treated) the large one for months. It finally fell out (yes, big eeeww!) one day, leaving a large hole in my hand. After that, the other three just disappeared.
So what I am suggesting is maybe you only need to treat the first one?
Wow! Thanks everybody for the great responses. Well, KBlaix, my mom just went out and got me the discs because she saw them at the store and thought I should try them! Both my parents said I should just go to the doctor and get them removed, but since I was kind of worried it was going to hurt I just decided to try at-home stuff, but trust me, If these medications don't have any effect in like two weeks then I'm definately going to the doctor. Thanks Catty1 for all the awesome info! I already googled the stuff, but was overwhemed by how one person will say one treatment doesn't work, but somebody else says it does, so I'm very appreciative for the personal experiences. Sirrahved, I don't know if that would work in my case because I counted again and I guess I have more like nine and they're all pretty deep, especially these two stubborn ones. And Freedom, I'll have to try that if these two medications don't seem to have any effect within the next week. I'll also talk to my doctor about if these applicants are bad for my feet. Sorry for the long post, I didn't know warts were so annoying!
I had warts on my feet when I was a kid. We had to constantly go and get them burned off. At the time we lived in California, after we moved to NY they were gone! So we chatted with a doc about it, and he told us, it had to do with the soil. I played in dirt barefoot all the time, so that what he was sure the cause was. but It was many years ago.
I had one on the side of my toe before. And I think I used what KBlaix suggested and it went away. In high school a friend of mine had about 4 on her foot and she treated them to get them to go away. No need for a doctor. But everyone is different.
I had a seed wart that spread to another place and I had them both burned off TWICE.. I promise you, it does NOT hurt when they do it OR afterwards. I had fought them with everything on the market for years and I was tired of messing with them. The second time I had them done, I kept telling the doctor, go further and deeper, I want them GONE!
I worked with a guy who had numerous planters warts on his feet. He had them burned off then the doctor gave him a RX for a salve called "Aldera". It is very expensive and you only get 12 tiney, itsy, bitsy foiled pack of it per RX. He eventually got rid of his with the Aldera.
Good luck with those!! They are TOUGH to get rid of. My best advice is to see a podiatrist. I had to have mine laser removed several times before they were totally gone.
One thing with the discs... you cannot just forget to put one on one day, or think that it's almost gone. It will freaking spread out, I don't know what the technical term is for it, but the one that started out tiny on my foot about 10 years ago, and I left go for 2 days because I thought it was dying and going away... well, it just decided to thrive on the warm moist heat in my sneakers and by the time I got back to the podiatrist, it was the size of a half dollar on the ball of my foot.
I am a wimp when it comes to this stuff. He had to actually put the freezing stuff on it, and the whole entire area got all infected like, and "rejected" that tissue as being bad, and it popped up out of my foot, and I had a huge, gaping hole in my foot that had to be treated and gauzed up and all that. It was an experience I will NEVER forget.
The only time before that was when I had one or two on my foot my my toes from showering in the showers at the public pool without flip flops on. We ended up at the shore later that summer, and I swear the salt water and the sand absolutely ate the entire wart away. It was amazing.
I think that is why when I got the second one, that turned out so badly, I didn't think it would turn out so badly.
I just remembered my dad's planter's wart. He had a planter's wart for more than 20 years! He just kept treating it, but it never went away. My dad hates going to the doctor so he never went. A couple years ago he got a big piece of glass in the bottom of his foot. He tried pulling it out, but didn't get it all and when it got infected he finally went to the doctor. When the doctor was looking at his foot he saw the wart. The doctor got the glass out and got rid of the wart too.
When I was very young, I had a small wart on my foot. My mum got the pumice stone on it right away. Very painful, not advised. ;)
I think my brother uses something called 'Wartner', something which freezes the core of the wart and therefore the blood supply is cut off. Not sure if you have that stuff over there, though.