# I got a wart frozen yesterday. Now what happens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403 "2004-06-03T05:11:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/1 "2004-06-03T05:11:54Z")
I got a wart frozen yesterday. What happens now? Its still there, but its blue. Is it going to fall off or disappear? Should I put neosporin on it or something? I should have asked these questions before I left the office, but I forgot. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/2 "2004-06-03T05:24:47Z")
I work in a Derm office and deal with warts on an almost constant basis. Most of the warts I deal with haven’t responded to cryotherapy (freezing) and the patient has to come in weekly for Cantherone treatments. This is a liquid we put on the wart(s), then cover with tape and a bandaid. After 4 hours, you take the tape and bandaid off and wash it. Next week when you come in, we pare away the dead skin on and around it (death courtesy of the Cantherone) and apply another treatment. It usually takes at least a couple months. If you have Plantar warts, there’s another treatment that involves 2 different acids that smoke when you apply them, and that’s kinda cool to do. I hope your cryo works. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/3 "2004-06-03T05:26:28Z")
Oh, yeah, it’s supposed to (now, after freezing) form a blister then a scab, and hopefully be gone forever. You should put Polysporin (preferably, but if you have Neosporin that would work too) on it for a few days, bandaid optional. ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/4 "2004-06-03T05:36:11Z")
This is no joke ------ have you ever tried applying duct tape. Just put a small piece of tape to the wart, enough to cover, and leave it there for a week. Then remove the tape and scrape off the dead parts of the wart - repeat. After the third time or so you’ll pull off the tape and the wart will come off with it. I did this and it worked. Don’t believe me? Try GOOGLE - +“Duct tape” +warts. If it’s not true ‘they’ couldn’t put it on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/5 "2004-06-03T06:25:37Z")
> [@Stinkpalm](#): > > I got a wart frozen yesterday. What happens now? Something _wonderful_. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/6 "2004-06-03T06:53:19Z")
> [@Stinkpalm](#): > > I got a wart frozen yesterday. What happens now? Its still there, but its blue. Is it going to fall off or disappear? Should I put neosporin on it or something? > > I should have asked these questions before I left the office, but I forgot. I had some warts frozen a while ago. They all responded to freezing very well… unlike the one that was removed with acid when I was a kid, which left a big scar. I wasn’t told to put any ointments on them, so I didn’t. The dermatologist recommended covering them with band-aids or athletic tape, which definitely helped once they started to blister, because damn, they got sensitive. I lanced the blisters when they got too full and painful - not sure if you’re supposed to do that, but hey, I’m still alive. I would recommend using neosporin if you do that, or any other time you inflict an open sore on yourself, really. After three weeks, one was gone and she froze the other two again; three weeks later, only one was left and she froze that one; another three weeks later, they were all gone. ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/7 "2004-06-03T19:48:39Z")
How quickly are they likely to grow back, if they’re going to? I had frozen my own two a few weeks back, repeated on one that didn’t seem to be gone about 10 days later, and now everything is almost back to normal. Right now they look like my other fingers - am I probably finished with this, or could they still grow back? When I used the liquid over the counter stuff a while back, I had a few wart-free weeks, but then it grew back. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/8 "2004-06-03T19:54:17Z")
I had a Mystery Growth on my neck frozen off just a couple of months ago. It was rather cool, actually (no pun intended). It worked exactly like **trublmakr** said: it blistered, then scabbed over, and within two weeks there was no trace left. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/9 "2004-06-03T19:56:21Z")
Never had any luck with freezing. The darned things simply shed a thin layer of dead skin after a week and begged for more. It took a determined doc bearing a small carbon-arc _torch_ to properly destroy them. Still have the scars today after 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/10 "2004-06-03T23:54:21Z")
> [@trublmakr](#): > > I work in a Derm office and deal with warts on an almost constant basis. While I’m waiting for the appointment with my dermatologist, what’s the general, if not straight, dope on recurring warts? 🆒 They’re in the web between the third and fourth fingers. In February, I had one appear and went to get it frozen. It came back and brought a friend. In April, I had them frozen. Over the weekend, they came back and brought friends. I’ve now got four small, but very itchy bumps there, all grouped together. I don’t want to get these frozen and wind up with eight next month! I’d try the duct tape, but being in the web, there’s too much movement and change of shape for tape to stay put for long, unless I buddy-taped the fingers. But that would make typing really tough! ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/11 "2004-06-04T00:19:33Z")
How long should it take to blister over? I got mine frozen a couple days ago and they don’t seem to be blistering. Its all black and blue around the outside of the wart though. How long will it take for that to go away? FTR, I went to the derm and it turns out I have molescum (sp?). I apparently got it from a girl I was dating. I had to get a few small ones on my pecker frozen. No fun. He scrapped the ones off my lower abdomen and said that I would be fine after a couple visits to make sure no other ones grew back. This has taught me a lesson about sleeping with women. You never can be 100% safe. I wore a rubber, but that doesn’t stop this virus. Thankfully this thing isn’t even on the radar of serious STDs. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/12 "2004-06-04T00:23:23Z")
I had a wart treated, a year ago. I had it “lasered,” and two weeks later I had it frozen. After the lasering, it turned black. Nothing changed after the freezing. About two months later, the black spot fell off. A year later, the wart is back. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/13 "2004-06-04T00:28:00Z")
All warts are caused by viruses, so there’s no way to really tell if freezing will get rid of them permanently. They do have a tendency to recur. The blister should have formed within 24 hours. I don’t know why they would be blue, unless the doctor did what my doctors do and marked them with a pen. I asked a doctor today about the duct tape, and he said “it has to be made out of real ducks for it to work”. ---
**Author:** ![Teelo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Teelo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teelo)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/14 "2004-06-04T01:11:18Z")
By ‘Freezing’ do you all mean having the doctor place liquid nitrogen on it? I did that a few years ago when I had 4 of them, 2 on my foot and 2 on my hand. The pain wasn’t the worst ever, but it lasted several hours. But in the end it worked, and they never came back. I do remember one on my foot had swollen up to a big puss ball, and freaked me out when I poked it with a needle and it all poured out…like I said, it died. Unfortunately, I recently noticed a baby one on the edge of my pointer finger, and its a pretty cool coincidence that this thread was started. I knew about the ‘duct tape thing’ and am going to start that procedure tonight! ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/15 "2004-06-04T21:18:54Z")
My daughter had 3 warts frozen about 18 months ago - they were cropping up a bit too frequently (and I developed one suddenly, also), otherwise we’d have waited. IIRC, they didn’t visually change for a few days, then they just started sort of “flaking” off. We were told to use the Compound W salicylic acid stuff also, but I never bothered with that. The strange thing was that she had a 4th wart, which was _not_ frozen off (she found the 3 quite painful, and we decided to hold off). But _that_ one disappeared too. As did mine. Bizarro. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/16 "2004-06-04T21:29:03Z")
I took my 16 year old nephew to get warts burned off his hands a couple of years ago.\* Tthe doctor said he’d do one hand at a time (because of the pain), but that frequently when one wart got creamed, others disappeared also, even without treatment. That is exactly what happened. All his warts vamoosed. Strange but true. - We already made all the “excessive masturbation” jokes you could possibly think of, thanks. 😃 That part was fun. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/17 "2004-06-04T22:14:53Z")
I’ve only had plantars warts, which are a different beast, but I’ve been told that one becomes more prone to getting them if you have a vitamin diffiency. True or false? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/18 "2004-06-04T22:21:38Z")
> [@Mama Zappa](#): > > The strange thing was that she had a 4th wart, which was _not_ frozen off (she found the 3 quite painful, and we decided to hold off). But _that_ one disappeared too. As did mine. Bizarro. Well, they are caused by a virus, and your immune system does most of the work of getting rid of them. If you put duct tape on a wart, all that really does is irritate the skin so your immune system realizes there’s a problem in that area. ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/19 "2004-06-05T00:04:51Z")
> [@trublmakr](#): > > …I asked a doctor today about the duct tape, and he said “it has to be made out of real ducks for it to work”. As God as my witness - I put duct tape on two warts that I had for about two weeks each. I took the duct tape off only to scrape off the dead wart every three days or so. In about two weeks I took the duct tape off to clean the wart and the entire wart came with it. No lie. Would I say this just to get someone to wear duct tape for two weeks? OK - but I’m telling you this worked FOR ME. Either that or it was an amazing coincidence. If your doctor or mine hasn’t heard of this - no big deal. It probably isn’t taught in med school. But this was recommended by MY DOCTOR. But don’t just take my word for this or my doctor’s – again, check the Internet — GOOGLE +“duct tape” +warts and see what others are saying. ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403/20 "2004-06-05T00:13:15Z")
> [@Tigers2B1](#): > > As God as my witness - I put duct tape on two warts that I had for about two weeks each. I took the duct tape off only to scrape off the dead wart every three days or so. In about two weeks I took the duct tape off to clean the wart and the entire wart came with it. No lie. Would I say this just to get someone to wear duct tape for two weeks? OK - but I’m telling you this worked FOR ME. Either that or it was an amazing coincidence. > > If your doctor or mine hasn’t heard of this - no big deal. It probably isn’t taught in med school. But this was recommended by MY DOCTOR. But don’t just take my word for this or my doctor’s – again, check the Internet — GOOGLE +“duct tape” +warts and see what others are saying. This is a report of a medical study which says as much — [http://www.askewchiropractic.com/14Exercise,Nutrition,Weight,andHealth.htm](http://www.askewchiropractic.com/14Exercise,Nutrition,Weight,andHealth.htm) > [@](#): > > **Duct Tape for warts: > Is there anything duct tape can’t do?** > > Get a load of this study reported in the October 2002 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine: > > Researchers say that good ol’ duct tape (the heavy, sticky , gray, fabric-backed kind) is more effective and less painful for treating warts than freezing them off with liquid nitrogen. > > Apparently, researchers had patients stick a piece of duct tape on the wart for six days at at time, with a water soak, emery board (or pumice stone) filing, and overnight drying in between applications. This went on for up to two months or until the wart went away. > > The study was conducted at the Madigan Army Medical Center near Tacoma, > Washington. 51 patients between the ages of 3 and 22 completed the study. > **Of the 26 patients treated with duct tape, 85 percent got rid of their > warts compared with 60 percent of the 25 patients who received the freezing > treatment.** > > The researchers think the duct tape irritated the warts and caused an immune response to the growths. Other types of tape were not tested, nor were the effects tested on adults. > > The AP reports that one Pediatric dermatologist, Dr. Anthony J. Mancini of Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, says he uses a combination of duct tape with a topical, over-the-counter wart remover for nightly treatments. > > I have a friend who used a 1/4" drill to relieve the pressure under the big toenail he had smashed. I suspect that Jay Leno may be right. These things are signs of the conspiracy by HMO’s to get us to go to the hardware store instead of the doctor. > > You just watch. The identical product will be re-packaged and re-labeled as “Wart-o-Matic” sold at ten times the price. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-wart-frozen-yesterday-now-what-happens/248403.md?page=2)