Information from Libby Edwards, MD - Mid-Charlotte Dermatology & Research

WARTS

You have a skin virus infection that causes warts. This virus is passed from one person to another by skin-to-skin contact, but most people are not aware of being exposed to the wart virus. The virus is very common and can be transmitted any time there is a break in the skin and the virus is present. Depending on the location of the wart and exactly which wart virus is present, warts can appear differently. Warts on the hands are most common in children, but they can occur in other places as well, including the knees. A plantar wart is any wart located on the bottom of the foot. Flat warts are small, barely raised warts, most common over the backs of the hands, over the face, and over the lower legs of women who shave their legs.

Warts are not dangerous. They are only important because they are unattractive. Occasionally, a wart forms in an area that causes pain from pressure, as often happens with plantar warts on the bottom of the foot. In addition, because warts are viral infections, they sometimes spread to other areas of the skin, if left untreated. However, because they are not dangerous, whether to treat your warts is up to you. Warts in children usually go away without treatment. This can happen within weeks or within years (there is no way to predict this). Leaving warts to go away of their own accord is a very reasonable "treatment." Otherwise, warts have to be destroyed for removal, because there are no good medications that kill the wart virus itself.

The most common treatments are acids applied to the warts at home, and liquid nitrogen treatments in a doctor's office, where extremely cold liquid is sprayed or applied to the warts. This painful treatment causes a blister that, after healing, removes much or all of the wart along with it. Often, several treatments spaced about 1 month apart are required. If you choose to treat your warts at home, you must take care to do it properly, to get good results. The area of the wart should be soaked with warm water until the wart is soft and white. Medication is applied to the wart with a cotton-tipped swab (if liquid) or by an adhesive patch cut to the size of the wart. A piece of adhesive tape is applied over the sticky patch to ensure that it stays in place. Each night the medication and any dead wart are removed after soaking and sanding the surface with an emery board or a pumice stone, and medication is reapplied. In most cases, the wart will disappear after 1 to 3 months of nightly treatment. Any new warts during treatment should be tended to as well.