[Pursegrrl]

OK, at the risk of grossing everyone out, here goes.

I have a small cluster of warts on the bottom of my left foot (kinda between the ball of the foot and the start of the toes so not painful as they are not on a weight bearing area) AND...more recently a couple small ones on my right thumb right next to my thumbnail. YAY. How sh*tty is this???

I'm now too embarrassed to go in for manis/pedis. I've done some reading on this and I know they are caused by a strain of the human papillomavirus (HPV). How did this happen? Well, as many of you know I play hockey and so I spend a lot of my time in ice rink locker rooms which are often not very clean and full of sweaty hockey gear and bodies. Gritty. That is probably how I caught this...just speculating but who knows.

What am I doing about it? Well, along with all the other health stuff I've been battling (abnormal Pap, high BP, etc), I decided to see a dermatologist for some help. She is awesome...too bad she is leaving her practice for a research position at U of W but in the meantime she gave me some good advice (as well as a full skin exam which I had never had but needed to at my age with very fair skin).

Her advice to treat the warts:
1. Use Mediplast (a product made by Curad). It is an adhesive sheet treated with 40% salycic acid on one side and a small pad on the other. You cut the sheet to the exact size you need to cover the warts. You can get it for under $1 a sheet at any drug store.

2. Cover the Mediplast-ed areas with athletic (breathable) tape, or a bandaid.

3. Change every 2-3 days. Here's where it gets a little gross. She really and truly told me it's gonna look worse before it gets better...meaning the affected areas could get a little gooey and icky as the acid gets into the skin. That's OK. She said just take the Mediplast off the affected areas every couple of days in the a.m. and take your a.m. shower per usual.

4. Then, on those alternate days, use a pumice stone on the affected areas after your morning shower to gently buff off the extra skin. The Mediplast creates a callous as the affected skin is treated with the acid, so it needs to get buffed away.

Per her advice, if I keep this up religiously, it should resolve itself in 2-3 months. OMG that seems like forever! I'm so tired of having a bandaid on my right thumb (esp when shaking hands, typing, etc). But even more embarrassing having a wart there too .

She also gave the one on my thumb a freezing treatment which kills off the blood supply at the root, in an attempt to speed the healing along. She said she does NOT do freezing treatments on the bottoms of feet as more often than not the resulting blisters get infected and the patient can't walk for a couple weeks.

anyone else care to share their experiences? I know this is horribly icky but when I read online that a wart is simply an area of skin that grows faster than others that made it not seem so bad .

[claireZk]

I had one on my finger when I was little. It was soooo embarrassing

After about a year, it just mysteriously went away...

[Taralindsey]

Oh I feel for you! I had 2 warts before. One on the palm side of my index finger and one on the palm of my left hand (same one the other wart was on) I tried freezing them off and that never worked. They were small thankfully but after about 1 year they just went away on their own! I am always scared I will get another one someday.

[LoriB]

I had a wart in the middle of my thumbprint on my right thumb. It was pretty big and it was there for 12 yrs. I tried EVERYTHING to get rid of it, including dermatologist treatments. I kept it clipped down to skin level but I was also so self conscious of it and had just developed a habit of making sure I held my hands a certain way so that no one could look at my thumb for very long. I was so mortified when they put my thumbprint on my daughter's birth certificate and there was the big ol' wart right in the middle of my thumbprint.

About 3 years ago, out of the blue and without any treatment at all...the wart simply went away. I couldn't believe it! It took a long time for me to lose my old habits of hiding my thumb. I'm always afraid it will come back but so far, so good.

So all I can offer is sympathy and the hope that yours will also disappear someday. Don't feel bad, tons of people have them!

[biochick]

hummm i had wart on my hand a few years back and i think i got a freezing treatment from my dermotologist...i think it was liquid nitrogen or something? but mine went away after a few days.

i used the wart removal stuff from drug stores and it didnt really work well for me so thats why i went to the dermotolist

i hope that yours will go away soon!

[bagaholic85]

ive had 2 over the last 2 years on my fingers. the 1st one i tried OTC removals, didnt work. then i went to the dermatologist 3x to have it frozen off, even that didnt work (and it HURTS!). finally i did a little research online and found a fabulous home remedy that i swear by:

Apple Cider Vinegar Solution:
1. take the top of a q-tip off and soak it in apple cider vinegar
2. apply over wart and cover with band-aid
3. keep covered all day everyday for about a week. (i re-applied a few times a day bc i wash my hands a lot. feet are easier)
4. you will see the wart turn black and you can scrape away the dead skin around it (i actually dipped nail clippers in alcohol and cut it away...it sounds gross but its already dead skin).
5. after about a week the wart is gone and you'll have a little pit where it was. i covered that with vaseline and a band-aid for a few days bc it was a little tender

and that was 2 years ago and they havent come back. as long as you can deal with the smell of the cider vinegar for a few days, but i think its worth it

[Tammy518]

I've had them frozen off my fingers before. Last summer I had a plantar's wart cut out of the bottom of my foot. It was a little painful to walk on that day, but nothing too bad. I had it taken out on a Friday, and we did stuff all weekend. I've tried the Dr. Scholl's things that kind of sound like what you're describing and in months it never totally went away, so that's when I finally went to a podiatrist.

[Pursegrrl]

Hey, thanks, everyone...I know they are pretty common but one of those icky things that we don't like to talk about necessarily, KWIM?

Thanks for the tips...I am a couple weeks into this so if I don't have progress after awhile I will find someone else. My derm (who is leaving her practice) referred me to a couple colleagues but their location isn't super convenient...we'll see! I hear so often how they suddenly clear up on their own after a few years or so...my foot ones have been around about that time (yuck) and the thumb one just in the last 90 days so hopefully I can knock 'em out soon!

XXXOO PGal

[outpt]

I had one on my thumb right against the cuticle when I was a kid. Of course, I picked at it forever, not knowing what it was. Finally, I went to a dermatologist, and it took forever to treat it because the franken-wart was now quite larger and more settled into my poor thumb. But it eventually died! And apparently my thumbnail gained some superpowers from the medicine, because I have the toughest nail (on the thumb only) around.

Good luck with treating them, Pursegrrl!

[gillianna]

My friends son has some warts on his one hand. She said it took about 8 visits to the doctor to have them frozen before they finally never came back.
My other friend's doctor said to cover the warts with duct tape and there is information on how to do this on the web. I guess it is a old way of doing it and it is supposed to work. I mean her doctor said to do it.

[Pursegrrl]

Originally Posted by gillianna

My friends son has some warts on his one hand. She said it took about 8 visits to the doctor to have them frozen before they finally never came back.
My other friend's doctor said to cover the warts with duct tape and there is information on how to do this on the web. I guess it is a old way of doing it and it is supposed to work. I mean her doctor said to do it.

I've heard of the duct tape method too. It's supposed to suffocate the wart(s) so they just die and drop off eventually.

I also read about using clear nail polish, but I tried this and the polish never stayed on long enough to do any good.

Well, today was one of those "alternate day remove the mediplast and buff with a pumice stone" days . Looking a little better, esp on the thumb but I gotta keep it up just in case.

[Prada Psycho]

Originally Posted by Pursegrrl

OK, at the risk of grossing everyone out, here goes.

I have a small cluster of warts on the bottom of my left foot (kinda between the ball of the foot and the start of the toes so not painful as they are not on a weight bearing area)
anyone else care to share their experiences? I know this is horribly icky but when I read online that a wart is simply an area of skin that grows faster than others that made it not seem so bad .

I had that happen when I was in my early 20's. Even then, the acid pads were the treatment. It worked very well. I never had a problem with it again, so follow the MD's advice.

[titania029]

Ooh, I may give this a try. I have one on one of my toes. It's been there forever, and I tried all the OTC stuff and seeing a doctor for the freezing treatments, but it won't die!!

Originally Posted by bagaholic85

ive had 2 over the last 2 years on my fingers. the 1st one i tried OTC removals, didnt work. then i went to the dermatologist 3x to have it frozen off, even that didnt work (and it HURTS!). finally i did a little research online and found a fabulous home remedy that i swear by:

Apple Cider Vinegar Solution:
1. take the top of a q-tip off and soak it in apple cider vinegar
2. apply over wart and cover with band-aid
3. keep covered all day everyday for about a week. (i re-applied a few times a day bc i wash my hands a lot. feet are easier)
4. you will see the wart turn black and you can scrape away the dead skin around it (i actually dipped nail clippers in alcohol and cut it away...it sounds gross but its already dead skin).
5. after about a week the wart is gone and you'll have a little pit where it was. i covered that with vaseline and a band-aid for a few days bc it was a little tender

and that was 2 years ago and they havent come back. as long as you can deal with the smell of the cider vinegar for a few days, but i think its worth it

[Bag&ShoeLover]

I had 5 yes that is correct 5 plantar warts on my right foot. OUCH OUCH and OMG OUCH!

I paid over 300.00 (no insurance) to get them burned off. She said it would take a couple of treatments. HA did it only once. but then I read online about lots of ways to get rid of them. So I used duct tape.

I got some acid from Walgreens. Put it on my foot and covered it in duct tape. I would peel the tape away once or twice a day. Put on more acid..put the tape back. Leave it on for a week. Then take it off and soak my foot and start scrapping away the skin. The repeat. It took a few months but all are GONE!

Oh and advil works for the pain.

[vanojr9]

When I was a little kid I got plantar's warts on the bottom of one foot - I went to the derm and got an acid treatment for them, worked like a charm after about a month (it was a drawn-out process because the derm wanted me to be able to walk around). I also got a wart on my hand two years ago and tried everything to get rid of it, OTC, duct tape, doctor's treatments, everything. What finally worked was me going into the doctor's office every two weeks and getting the thing frozen off until it was gone. I think it took 3 treatments right in a row before it didn't come back - I even had the doctor freeze the skin where the wart had been just to make sure it was gone. The treatments hurt a little bit but not enough to deter me from getting rid of that nasty thing. You've got to find a doctor who is really willing to freeze it though (I finally did - he would come in the room and say "this is gonna HURT" lol, it wasn't that bad) - none of this light and gentle freezing, it's gotta burn, and good!