DISCLAIMER: I have made an appointment to see my doctor and fully intend to follow whatever course of treatment she advises. I’m NOT seeking medical advice; I’m just curious ahead of time as to whether anyone else has had these.
Around 1987 I got a splinter in my big toe. I dug most of it out, but some of it remained and some callousy, cartilagey tissue grew around it, level with my skin. It never bothered me at all after that. End of story.
Cut to 2005. Whoa, what’s happening? Over the years the Thing has spread slightly in area, but over the last few months it has sired offspring: smaller versions of the same thing on the bottom of the same toe, on the ball of my foot, and in the last month or so two more on the adjacent (second) toe. The original Thing is now slightly raised, and sometimes it bothers me when I walk; it’s not painful, I just can feel it and it’s annoying.
OK, so I made my doctor appointment. Then I did some surfing and concluded that these are probably plantar warts. I never had warts before! I see that several of the treatments involve local anesthesia. Whoa, whoa whoa, back up. I’ve had local anesthesia in my big toe (the other one) twice for an ingrown toenail and OH MY GOD THE PAIN – not from the procedure but from the damn needle! I suppose I’ll suffer through again if that’s what it takes, but I’m already not looking forward to it.
So, have you had plantar warts? What was the treatment? Did you get a big-ass needle in your toe? Did it hurt like a bastard? Did they come back? Spill, spill!
I’ve had them. I went to the dermatologst for something unrelated, they looked at 'em, told me what they were, and offered to freeze them off. I said “no thanks” so they told me to get this stuff, from Curad, called wart plasters (you have to ask your pharmacist for them but they’re OTC). You cut a piece to fit, stick it on the wart, cover the whole business with duct tape and the plasters melt off the wart layer by layer (some people think that just the duct tape alone works just as well).
I fooled around with that for about sixmonths, until I got sick of dealing with it, and decided to go back to ignoring the warts. They spontaneously disappeared a couple of months ago.
Ignoring the problem didn’t work for me. Situation got out of hand after a few years.
I had mine frozen off. This a annoying procedure where the doc (I went to a dermatologist) takes a swab with liquid nitrogen on it and applies it to the various warts. Mildly painful. By the next morning, I got these huge blood filled blisters. Since they made it difficult for me to walk, and figuring they would burst anyway, I lanced them. The bathtub looked like a crime scene. I walked around with a limp for a week or so as the skin healed up. Two more appointments to get rid of the stragglers, each time better than the last. Good news - completely cured, even years later.
Good Lord! What is it with foot cures? My ingrown toenail was also a bloody mess both times they sawed it off, and a big annoyance to deal with for many years ( :: waves to Hello Again :: ). Ten years later it is finally starting to look normal again and I haven’t had to use my “special” nail clipper in months.
I had one frozen off, it made a big hole in my foot, which was weird. It took two tries to get rid of it completely, but its gone for good now. I didn’t mind the freezing, it didn’t hurt much and I didn’t get any blisters or anything afterwards.
I had one on my big toe. They put liquid nitrogen on it, then had me use the wart plasters as well, to be sure the wart was gone. No big-ass needles :eek: or anything like that. I don’t remember it hurting particularly badly (though keeping the plasters on was a pain), and the wart hasn’t come back so far, four years later.
Liquid nitrogen, and then a scraper. The doc was very nice, and was amused by my fear that it would hurt. It was only ever a dull pain, hardly noticeable.
I just picked something up from the drugstore. They had stuff for regular warts and for plantars warts, used that every night for a few months and scraped away the dead skin on my own.
I used to get plantar warts constantly when I was swimming at the Y, from the shower and lockerroom floor, supposedly.
My dermatologist would treat them with acid—I’m guessing just a stronger version of the salycilic acid in Compound W and OTC wart plasters. He’d dose them, then bandage them, and after a few days you could pick away the dead tissue. (You’re not supposed to pick them, but I can’t leave my feet alone.) They were often a little sore, and I remember getting out of gym class once, because I didn’t want to run on them. Er, okay, mostly it was because I didn’t want to dress out for gym class and I had a plausible medical-type excuse.
I’ve had them twice. When I was a teenage, I had a couple on my big toe and the podiatrist cut them out. Left kinda big craters that filled in but I don’t remember is hurting much.
Then, in my late twenties I started getting them again but ignored them. Mistake. When I finally went to the student health clinic, I had over fifty on one foot. The doctor froze them off over a series of visits. I don’t remember that huring much either. It might have stung a little but it wasn’t real pain and I could still walk.
The doc can either burn them off or freeze them off. But last week I read something about a new treatment that involves an injection into the wart. The benefit of this treatment is that it will cure other warts that are “children” (my non-medical term) for the main wart. So it can cure warts in hard-to-reach places.
I got them working at MickieD’s in High School, dunno if that was how or where I got them… how do you “catch” them anyways, I wonder? I didn’t even notice them until they started becoming excruciatingly painful.
Had a few on each foot and they fascinated me. I would pick at them with a pin and I was amazed by how deep they went. I’d clear out the black part until I would hit the root aand then it was very, very painful…I guess the black part was either dead flesh or the actual fungus, it was of a black powdery consistency. They are very satisfying to explore and pick, if you’re into that thing. They are the truffles of the foot.
After hobbling around for a couple of days I finally went to the Doctor. He opted to cut them out. Even after local anasthetic the procedure was still slightly painful. I remember I had gaping craters around a quarter to a half inch deep where they had been cut out. Pretty disturbing, the deepness of the wounds. Had problems getting around for about a week after their removal. They’ve never come back.
I had two on the bottom of my right foot. I suppose I caught them from my hubby when we started sharing a shower
The were pretty small and painless until my second baby was born last fall. Then, for some reason (changes in hormones?) they started spreading like crazy and suddenly became very itchy and painful.
I used duct tape to remove them. Honest to god, it worked. That’s just one link from CBS about it, but if you do a google for “wart duct tape” you’ll find all kinds of references, some from medical journals. Apparently it sort of suffocates the little buggers. Cheap and totally painless, but it took about 4 weeks to completely get rid of them. Now my husband is trying it on his warts–they’re much larger than mine so it’s taking longer but it’s working for him, too.
I have one that lives in the shelter of my left pinky toe. Three years ago, when the dermatologist carved a crater out of my back (at age 22. Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 1997… wear sunscreen), he offered to take care of the wart and I said “why not.” He applied nitrogen to it, and two weeks later when I was in to have the stitches taken out of my back, he lasered it.
I’ve been battling an extended family of plantar warts on both feet for the better part of 5 years. Freezing, OTC cures from the drugstore, and even “do-it-yourself” surgeries with various razors (not something I’d recommend :)) failed to make a dent.
Then…duct tape. 4 weeks in, my warts are already on the mend.
I had an ointment with salycilic acid-you’d paint it on like nail polish, after scraping the surface of the warts with an emery board or pumice stone. It took them about three months to clear up then.
Me too, but it’s only been about three years, though. I used the brush-on stuff for about 3 months, and all it ever did was get rid of the first couple layers of skin. So I tried the band-aid type treatment instead. Within 10 days it was completely gone, so far never to return. Wish I had tried that first!
Had one in junior high. Tried the acid plasters without relief. Finally had the doctor nuke it out with the foot arc-welding device. Nasty stank, but all better.
Same story as Cats. Had two of them in junior high…one at the base of my right palm, one on the bottom of my left foot, about an inch below the little toe. Novacaine hurts when they jam the needle right into the wart. Then out came the arc-welder. Ever since I’ve had these shiny .25 inch scars, but the warts never came back.
