Should i dig out plantar wart

Thanks to Dr. Google, people have become very creative with their cures. Mahmood has heard patients swear by certain remedies during office visits, and she shares a theory for why these treatments may actually work. Most of the treatments for warts, especially the do-it-yourself wart treatments, are designed to irritate the skin.

The jury is still out on just how duct tape works — although everyone and their uncle has a theory — but it is most likely an activation of your immune system that ultimately eliminates your plantar wart. Most MacGyver-ish methods of wart removal involve soaking a cotton ball with a substance such as apple cider vinegar or urine and applying it to your plantar wart.

The duct tape method uses duct tape to cover the wart completely. Stronger peeling medicine salicylic acid. Prescription-strength wart medications with salicylic acid work by removing layers of a wart a little bit at a time.

They may also stimulate your immune system's ability to fight the wart. Your doctor will likely suggest you apply the medicine regularly at home, followed by occasional office visits. Freezing medicine cryotherapy. Cryotherapy done at a doctor's office involves applying liquid nitrogen to the wart, either with a spray or a cotton swab. This method can be painful, so your doctor may numb the area first. The chemical causes a blister to form around your wart, and the dead tissue sloughs off within a week or so.

Cryotherapy may also stimulate your immune system to fight viral warts. You may need to return to the doctor's office for repeat treatments every two to four weeks until the wart disappears. Some studies suggest that cryotherapy combined with salicylic acid treatment is more effective than just cryotherapy, but further study is needed.

If salicylic acid and freezing medicine don't work, your doctor may recommend one or more of the following treatments:. It can look and feel like a callus. Plantar warts can be small, or they can grow to cover most of the sole of the foot. They are usually painless and go away on their own, sometimes taking a few months to resolve but can take up to 2 years. Warts are usually acquired from person-to-person contact. The virus is not highly contagious but can cause an infection by entering through a small break in the skin.

In the same way, warts can be spread to other places on your own body. The virus is rarely transferred by touching an object used by an infected person. Warts can affect people of any age, but they are most common in those years old. Those with HIV or organ transplants or on chemotherapy have a higher incidence of warts due to their weakened immune system.

The most common locations for plantar warts include: Soles of the feet, especially the weight-bearing areas eg, the heels and balls of the feet Undersides of the toes Plantar warts may occur singly or in clusters.

They appear as thick, rough, callus-like thickenings on the soles of the feet. To try this remedy, apply a small amount of tea tree oil diluted in olive or almond oil to the affected area twice a day. Milk thistle is another herbal remedy that may help clear up skin conditions. Unlike tea tree oil, milk thistle has been researched for its antiviral properties.

You can apply diluted milk thistle extract to your warts twice a day. But certain formulations can be used for other purposes too — this includes wart removal. One study found that a combination product of providone-iodine topical solution helped clear up warts after twice-daily applications over the course of 12 weeks.

You can buy both products from a drugstore. The spray works by creating a blister-like injury that sticks to the wart. Once the blister heals, the wart will go away too. To use freezing spray, dispense the product directly onto your wart for up to 20 seconds.

Repeat if necessary. The blister will form and fall off in about one week. After this time, you may decide to repeat treatment if the wart is still there. You might have to repeat the process several times for up to six weeks.