Wart Removal Methods – What Works Best?
There has been much debate over the years about the best methods that are available to treat common warts. Many methods have been tried and many of them have been proven to be useless, especially the many home remedies for warts. But a few wart treatment methods have stood the test of time because they actually do cure the problem. Check out the articles below to see what these authors had to say about the problem:
Comparative effectiveness of cryotherapy and salicylic acid for wart removal
Among the available treatment options, local application of salicylic acid would be the commonest to use. The method would involve using an applicator to touch over each wart after socking it with salicylic acid. As soon as it is applied, the surface of the wart would become white and in most instances, it would not cause any pain. However, touching the normal skin could cause burning feeling or irritation at the site and therefore you should avoid using on sensitive skin and over areas of thin skin.The second commonest method of removing warts would be cryotherapy. This involves extreme freezing of the wart to minus 50 degrees Celsius or even up to minus 196 degrees Celsius. However, the latter temperatures could only be achieved using liquid nitrogen and it is used primarily by trained health care professionals and would not be available as an over-the-counter treatment modality.Although there are several other formal and informal treatment methods available for treating warts, they may not be as effective as the first two methods.Which one is better? Salicylic acid or cryotherapy? Read more here…
And here is some related treatment advice from a very reputable health website:
Home care is effective in making the wart or warts go away. No matter what technique you use, warts will disappear 60%-70% of the time. Techniques may be done with or without medication.The ultimate goal of the medical therapies (not the surgical treatments) is to get your body to recognize the wart as something foreign and to destroy it, much like the body destroys a cold virus.
- Adhesive tape therapy
- Place several layers of waterproof adhesive tape over the wart region (even duct tape). Do not remove the tape for six and a half days. Then take off the tape and open the area to the air for 12 hours. Reapply tape for another six and a half days.
- Salicylic acid therapy
- Salicylic acid is available by many different trade names at the drugstore. It comes both as a liquid to paint on the wart or as a plaster to be cut out and placed on the wart tissue.
- The area with the wart should be soaked in warm water for five to 10 minutes. The wart should then be pared down with a razor. A simple plastic razor works fine for this, then throw it away. Do not shave far enough to make the wart bleed.
- Apply the salicylic acid preparation to the wart tissue. Do not apply it to other skin because of salicylic acid’s potential to injure normal tissue.
- Follow directions on the package for how long to apply the acid.
- Cryotherapy: Over-the-counter products to freeze the area of the wart using dimethyl ether and propane are available.
- Follow package instructions exactly. Do not get the product on surrounding intact skin.
Other alternative therapies mentioned by some articles include heat treatments and even hypnosis.
For the full report you can get all the info here:
My personal experience with warts or Verrucae Vulgaris (as they are known in the medical world) is that they can be tough to eradicate completely. The wart removal methods discussed above are all dependent on being able to see warts on the skin with the naked eye. Makes sense right? If you can’t see it you won’t be able to treat it. But there are often many tiny microscopic warts already forming on the skin which you can’t see yet – and they will only appear a few weeks or months later. So you never actually get rid of the problem.
But there is hope and a light at the end of the wart tunnel – a new treatment which works from inside the body of wart sufferers will treat all the wart lesions on your skin without missing a single one. It works by stimulating your immune system to attack the wart virus (HPV) from the inside and can cure your problem forever. But more about this in another post!