I had them on the ball of my right foot, off to the side though so I wasn’t walking directly on it, only partially. Had it for a year or so never knew what it was and it never bothered me so I never thought to mention it to the doc.
I was finally diagnosed by a pedicurist because I was given a treat for grade nine grad (manicure, pedicure and a haircut/style). I went to the doc and was told to use this over the counter stuff that is basically a little pad you put over the wart (cut so small I had to use a lot of them to cover my big wart’s, I had 2.) It says on the box it’s for Plantar’s warts. I constantly took off layers of dead skin (didn’t pull just kinda cut away the loose skin on the top and avoided pain because then I knew I’d hit either healthy skin or the wart and I didn’t want it to hurt) and used that every night.
Took awhile to get rid of it but I’ve had no problems since.
Ah, the joys of plantar warts, the little buggers.
I had a forest of them about 1 x 2" on the ball of my foot and suffered a most tedious year getting rid of them. I had the gel acid treatment first, after that went bad, the sadistic doctor cut off the dead skin and REAPPLIED the acid to the new skin underneath. I screamed so loud that a woman in the waiting room got up and left. After some cortisone shots for the swelling, narcotics and crutches, they were still there.
Six months later, new dermatologist. His suggestion? “Try burying a dead cat at an intersection and bay at the moon.”
Two months, (a dead cat) and another dermo later. We tried heavy (and delightful!) narcotics, a scalpel and Doufilm. Every night I would take my pill and soak my foot in hot water. As soon as I felt fine I would dry my foot and start scraping the old doufilm and any dead skin off with the scalpel and re-apply the doufilm. Rinse and repeat for 30 days. At the end of the month, I went in for a nitrogen burn. End of warts.
I think Doufilm is now over the counter, but I would check with a doctor first.
I had five or six breakouts of plantar warts on both feet as a kid. My mother took me to a dermatologist after she discerned that they weren’t going to just magically dissolve back into my feet, and he immediately proclaimed them no problem. He applied acid to each one (there were five or six, I think; 40, tremorviolet–my God!), then wrapped the area over with some bandage-y thing. He told me not to get them wet, and to come back a week later. Propping my foot over the side of the tub for seven nights in a row was horrible, but that was honestly the worst part of the process; when it came to my follow-up visit, the doctor removed the bandage, revealing whitish-blue dime sized dallops of deadened skin around the warts. He had me lay on my stomach and proceeded to scoop them out, which I didn’t feel at all until one snip or two right at the end, and even that was like nothing. I don’t think they even bled.
He sent me home to come back for a follow-up acid-ing a week later, and in the meantime the holes where the warts had been filled back with new skin at an alarming rate. They’d pratically filled in by the time I’d gotten home, which was only twenty minutes away, tops. It was the coolest thing. (I honestly wouldn’t mind having just one more pop up, just so I could see the skin grow back, it was that neat).
Two months later a few more popped up, and the same treatment was used…and the same thing for the next batch. But the outbreak after that my doctor wanted me to ice my feet then have the warts lazered off. He insisted it was much more pratical because it only took one session. We got as far as icing my feet (I’m very sensative to cold stuff) and that alone hurt a thousand times more than the acid and snipping route, so I insisted he break out the acid again.
I think once we tried the over-the-counter stuff as well, but that did nothing at all except smell foul and turn the warts yellow.
Had one in High School, in the days before lasers. They cut it off with a scalpel after deadening the area by sticking the needle through the TOP of my foot. My feet have been through some times.
I went to the podiatrist to have my bump treated. Turns out it was an abcess, not a plantar wart, and was consistent with a foreign body injury. He drained it and took x-rays, but never found a foreign body.
Since it involved pain and pus, I’ll be telling a gorier version in the MPSIMS zit story thread.
Thanks for the wart stories, however. They convinced me it was time to have this taken care of.
One of my two is gone, replaced with healthy pink skin. The other has grown back to about the size it was before. Of course the one that’s grown back is the one square on the bottom of my foot which causes such delightful pain with every step. I go back in about ten days for another treatment. I’m considering going with amputation.
I agree that duct tape alone is usually not enough. I was able to get rid of a huge plantar wart for good after dealing with it for two years. In the end it only took 3 weeks and it was gone.
First… duct tape it 24/7 to make it more vulnerable to other treatments.
Next… epsom salt soaks every day
lastly… hit it with Dr Scholl’s salicylic acid pads or something comparable. The idea is to create pressure around the wart when you walk (or grab things if it’s on your hand) area to push it out away from from the skin and into the acidic portion of the pad.
I have before and after photos on a blog i created to document the process. Luckily it worked like a charm! Check it out if you’re interested!
I had one of those suckers when I was eight. The doctor tried trimming it, but it came right back. He then burned it, leaving a big black hole on the bottom of my foot.
Yes, and they go away when you get a good immune reaction. Until then, you’re just waiting and dealing with the symptoms.
One of the ways to get a better immune reaction is to get better blood supply to the area. This is called “inflamation”. One of the ways to get inflamamed skin is tear at your skin with duct tape.
Ha, that is what happened to me in about 1969! So any time after that, we just did it ourselves. Last time I had a plantar wart on my left foot we tried the duct tape thing instead of the nail polish remover and that worked just as well.
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I suspect I caught them (actually, I’m sure, since they cropped up right when school started) was from walking around barefoot at the locker room at the local pool. Don’t do that – wear flipflops.