All That You Always Wanted to Know About Warts

You don’t have to live with warts forever. Not when wellness centers have a lot of treatment options available to treat these ‘ugly’ skin growths within a short period of time.

But, do you know what warts actually are?

Warts are abnormal skin growths caused by the human papilloma virus. These growths are divided into different classes such as common warts, flat warts, plantar warts and filiform warts. Although these fleshy growths are not malicious and can disappear within a few years, their unsightly appearance and painful condition make waiting that long too inconvenient.

Types of Warts

Warts can happen to people of any age and at any time, but children and people with weak immune system are the most vulnerable. The different wart types include:

Common Warts: These are generally small and grainy skin growths that mostly appear on fingers or feet. They are often covered in small black dots, recognized as blood clots. Generally, common warts disappear on their own, but their looks often encourage people to remove them medically.

Plantar Warts: You get these on your feet, which make walking painful. These warts are generally surrounded by hardened skin and look like light brown or skin-colored lumps. Clotted blood vessels that appear as small black dots are also seen in planter warts.

Flat Warts: Flat warts generally appear on the face and the leg areas. These growths mostly affect children and have a smooth, flat appearance. They also look smaller than other warts.

Filiform Wart: These types of warts are long and narrow, and generally appear around the eyelids, lips, face, and neck area.

Treatment Options for Warts

As warts are contagious, it is better not to use home-based remedies to cure the issue. Your doctor may use one of the following treatment methods:

• Medical experts can freeze the wart with liquid nitrogen. It will kill the wart virus and the tissue surrounding the area, which will fall off in a couple of weeks.
• Experts can also prescribe medications like bleomycin to destroy the virus while boosting your immunity with immuno-therapy based drugs.
• Doctors may surgically remove the warts if other therapies fail to offer a desired result. Doctors generally use an electric needle to destroy the base of the wart before cutting it away. Surgical procedures also offer the option of laser surgery, which uses laser pulse to burn and destroy the warts.

If you do not have a wart issue, try not to touch one or share your towel or creams with an infected individual. If you have warts, now you know what your options are. Contact us and our team of doctors can guide you to the right treatment.