Around 1995, I found out from my foot doctor that I had plantar warts on the sole of my right foot. I would treat them with salicylic acid, almost every day. And they won’t leave me. In fact, I think I was just making them more angry. They were very deeply embedded, I noticed. And conventional treatments had no effect (although I never had them frozen off, like my family physician recommended).
Now they have spread to my right index finger, on the side. Again, it defies conventional treatment. My new family physician (the old one retired), tried freezing it off. But again, it is so deeply embedded, that seems to have had little effect.
FWIW, I was tested for AIDS and hepatitis about 10 years ago. And I apparently have neither. I also suspect I got the warts in 1993.
As I said, I am at my wits’ end. Does anyone on these boards have any further suggestions? As I said, I have tried just about everything. And I would love hearing something perhaps I never tried. What could I lose by trying it?
Please feel free to tell your own stories too. As I said, at this point and time, I am open to just about anything.
Thank you all in advance for your helpful replies:)
Scratch it to draw blood, then let your immune system recognize the alien matter?
I get them where they are flat, conical, rock-hard bits of skin with the pointy end facing in. Like walking on a rock.
oh, and reported for forum change. Nothing personal, but medical advice belongs in IMHO, where you can be sure to get lots of worthless ideas from amateurs like me.
I went through a bout of warts a few years back including two Plantar warts (fancy talk for warts on your foot.) A podiatrist froze them and cut away what they could over the course of 3 or 4 visits and eventually declared me cured. Not even close - they came right back, same place, same size. We did that again, same result. There is no magic ‘freeze them away’ solution, sorry.
So, rather than keep spending the money I tried the scrapping and freezing myself using the store bought stuff and added Compound-W. That kinda controlled the things for a while but was way too much trouble.
Then, one day, they were just gone. The two on my foot and a couple that had appeared on my leg were gone as if they’d never been there. I guess my body finally figured out how to fight the virus. We’ll never know if all the salicylic acid, cutting and freezing had any effect but I like to think that fighting the surface warts slowed their spread and helped my immune system in some way.
So I guess my advice is: Fight the surface issue as you know how, there are tons of tools at the pharmacy, and also work on your immune system if you can because in the end, that is who’s going to solve the problem long term.
All I have is an anecdote. A few years ago I woke up with a wart on the tip of my left index finger. It wasn’t large, but it was in a crazy-annoying place, so I started trying to get rid of it–and it was really hard to do.
What worked in the end was using the salicylic acid patches until it was as tiny as I could get it–just a little black dot–and then freezing it with a home kit. Freezing the whole thing didn’t get it to the core, and salicylic acid couldn’t quite finish it off, but the two together finally worked.
I’ve had warts and I’ve also treated hundreds of patients with warts.
Some warts need very aggressive treatment. I’ve combined very assertive paring back of the wart with a scalpel with cryotherapy AND daily salicylate plasters on those cases, with occasional podophyllin application thrown in. None have outlasted that quadruple attack. Once I was tempted to go to the 5th stage of attack (imiquimod for non-HPV warts) but just my mentioning that med to the patient seemed to cause the wart to quit rather than take that on too.
20-some years ago I had a wart on my index finger that I fought with for over a year. I tried the patches for probably way too long before showing it to my doctor. He tried freezing it 2 or three times over 2 or three months, then finally attacked it with what looked like a small soldering iron. It left me with a finger that looked like a flute for a few weeks, but when it healed the wart never came back.
I had one on the underside of my big toe that I left untreated for many years. It was flat and didn’t hurt so I didn’t bother. When it finally made its way to the top of the to-do list it took over two years…was frozen at least 5 or 6 times and during the course of handling it, it spread so that had to be treated as well. Eventually I started paring it myself regularly, not just waiting for the dermatologist. There was so much damage to the skin I couldn’t tell if the wart was actually gone so I just kept on. Eventually I just stopped treating it to let the skin heal and it was gone. So far…two years…it hasn’t returned.
Another anecdote here. About a decade ago I had about a dozen warts all over my feet, including two massive ones on each big toe. Had had them for years and tried acid and freezing to no effect. But I just redoubled my efforts - sand them with a foot scourer after a shower, then acided, then repeat. The smaller ones were on soft skin and we’re harder to scrub, but the big ones saw signs of at least being less bumpy.
Then suddenly one day I woke up and saw them had gone. The small ones left tiny scars and the big ones were masses of dead skin which I scraped out. Never knew what killed them in the end.
When I was a teenager there was a summer that I spent hours at the community pool every day. I picked up plantar warts on the soles of both feet. One day maybe I was in the water longer than usual, because when I got home I noticed they had gone white and were soft, like completely waterlogged. I got a metal nail file and dug them out. The pits filled in fine and the warts never came back.
I was in eighth grade, and had a big nasty wart on the knuckle of my index finger. The process was exactly as you described.
When he finally got tired of messing around with freezing over a few visits, he got out something like a mini carbon arc torch and burned a crater in the finger. “looked like a flute” indeed.
But it never came back. Decades later the finger still bears a small scar on the knuckle.
About five years ago, I had 3 warts on my left foot and 2 warts on my left hand. Like you, I tried absolutely everything for almost a year. One day I accidentally cut a wart on my hand very badly. About a week later, ALL my warts were gone. It’s almost like the immune system doesn’t recognize the wart until it’s gotten damaged and they realize it doesn’t belong.
Home remedy my husband swears by and I am not joking. Get a piece of thread and rub it on and around the wart then bury that thread under a weeping willow tree and the wart will go away.
I had a wart on the side of my finger when I was a teenager.
Tried compound W but it always came back.
One time when it started to come back I sort of took off what I could with a blade then put the cherry of a lit cigarette (was a very occasional smoker at the time) on it and sucked back on the smoke.
Not recommending that method but I can say it never came back, and that was decades ago.
I had warts on feet and fingers when I was in high school. Like others here, I had them cut, frozen and burned. They came back every time.
My grandmother told me she could get rid of them if I would go find 3 white pebbles that “spoke” to me and return them to her. I did as she asked, she rubbed them on the warts while saying a little incantation, then told me to bury the stones in the garden. The suckers went away within 2 weeks. I have since done this for several people and it has worked every time.
The last time I got a wart on the side of my index finger, probably 25 years ago, I simply looked at it intently every day and lectured it to go away. Same dealio… it went away within 2 weeks.
Whatever causes them – and I know they are caused by a virus – they seem to be highly susceptible to the powers of suggestion. Worth a try, eh?
