Frostbite and tissue damage

Factual Questions
1

I had a plantar wart frozen at the doc’s office a couple of days ago. He shaved the bulk of it off with a blade, then gave it several short blasts of liquid nitrogen. Consistent with previous wart-freezing experiences, the site is somewhat tender today (two days later).

So why the pain? I am familiar with the pain of cold flesh, and I understand (or at least hope) that the wart has been killed by the freezing process. So has some of my own flesh been damaged (but not killed) by the freezing process, and now I’m receiving pain messages because of that damage?

2

Seriously?

Yes.

3

Yep.

4

how is it that tissue can be frozen without being killed?

And what is the nature of the damage?

5

Certainly there is flesh that is left viable, but affected by the trauma of (near)-freezing and cutting.

6

Because things in nature work on a spectrum of damage radiating away from the source. The nearest cells freeze and rupture those further way get damaged but recover.

7

And it’s not like you had perfectly formed skin under that wart, it needs time to grow back to be uniform with the rest of your skin, kind of like a scraped knee or knuckle.

8

I think, in terms of the effect on tissue, freezing with liquid nitrogen is quite similar to burning.