Warts can appear on any body. In many cases, they go away on their own, but sometimes it is necessary to remove them. Obviously, warts removal is best done in a health care facility. Self-disposal of such neoplasms may not lead to any result, or, conversely, lead to their injury. The next article will tell you where to remove warts.
Who can have warts
Anyone can get warts, but the most likely infected with papillomaviruses are in:
- Children and adolescents;
- Adults and children who have a habit of biting their nails or biting off barbs;
- People with weakened immune systems.
In children, warts usually go away without treatment. If the warts bother the child (e. g. painful) or multiply very quickly, a dermatologist should be consulted.
Signs and symptoms
There are several types of warts, depending on their appearance and location on the body. Below are the signs (what the person sees) and symptoms (what the person feels) that are common with some types of warts.
Vulgar (common) warts
If a child has a wart on their face, be sure to check their hands - most likely you will see warts there too. The virus usually spreads to the skin of the face when touched or when a child bites their nails.
Vulgar warts:
- more often on the fingers, around the nails and on the back of the palms;
- more often in places where the skin is often damaged, for example, places where there are burrs or when there is a habit of nail biting;
- most often they look like a small nodule (compaction) with an uneven rough surface;
- may have black spots on the surface (in fact, they are small thrombosed vessels) sometimes mistakenly called the "root" of the wart.
Plantar warts
They occur on the sole of the foot and are sometimes difficult to treat.
Plantar warts:
- appear more often on the soles of the feet;
- can grow, unite and form so-called clusters (mosaic warts);
- more often flat or growing inward (due to the pressure created when walking);
- are painful, especially when pressed;
- often cause the feeling of a pebble in the shoes;
- can have black spots on the surface.
Flat warts
- can appear anywhere, but usually more often in children on the face, in men - on the chin, in women - on the legs;
- Smaller and smoother than other types of warts
- usually several and arranged in groups, usually appear in large numbers - from 20 to 100 at a time.
Thread warts (Acrochords)
- look like long threads or thin finger-like protrusions;
- are more common on the face: around the mouth, eyes and nose;
- tend to grow quickly.
Do I need to get rid of warts and why?
A numbering system is used for every type of papillomavirus in medicine. It is known that HPV types numbered 57, 26-29, 14-17, 12, 10, 7 1-5 - are guilty of the appearance of different types of warts from 1 to 4 - cause plantar warts, 49, 28, 3and 10 - flat, HPV 27 - common.
Oncogenic HPV types require special attention, such as 52, 39, 33, 31, 30, 70, 40, 51, 55, 61-64, they can trigger the onset of precancerous disease and are considered to be the most dangerous. When localized on the penis, in the vagina, on the cervix - HPV types 16, 11, 13, 31, 33, 35 - genital warts and papillomas are formed.
The following papillomaviruses, which can be localized on the external genital organs and mucous membranes, are considered to be particularly dangerous - these are types 70, 66, 56, 33, 31, 18, 16. Many people who develop warts ask themselves the question, is itpossible to remove warts, is it dangerous or not?
In any case, a person should consult a dermatologist to determine the nature of the neoplasm and its type. In addition to eliminating aesthetic discomfort, an increased risk of injury to growth, it is necessary to treat or remove neoplasms, since the presence of foci of a viral infection provokes its spread to other areas of the skin, and there is also a risk of the neoplasm degenerating intoa malicious one. Be sure to consult a dermatologist to find out the type of wart, papilloma, or condyloma and the best way to get rid of it.
Do not postpone your visit if:
- The neoplasm is bleeding or torn;
- When the wart becomes painful, itching, burning occurs
- Changes color, becomes heterogeneous in color, changes shape and size
- The number of warts increases and several daughter plants appear
- If the wart is located in a conspicuous place, it is often traumatized and causes psychological complaints.
Removing a wart at home may not be safe. All doctors agree that removing a wart at home is dangerous and not advisable for the following reasons:
- The self-disposal of the debris most often leads to the formation of a scar, scar or burn of the nearest skin tissue;
- Using various home methods, it is possible to bring an infection into the wound and develop an inflammatory process or transfer the virus to other areas of the skin;
Of course, the likelihood of transforming a real wart into a malignant neoplasm is not great, but nevertheless there is such a risk, and after self-removal of a neoplasm without diagnosis and hysteroscopy of the removed material, there may be adverse consequences.
How are warts diagnosed?
In the case of warts, the dermatologist usually only needs to look at them to make a diagnosis. In some rare cases, a biopsy may be needed to confirm the diagnosis. To do this, the doctor removes the wart and sends the sample to the laboratory, where it is examined under a microscope. Don't worry - this is a quick and safe process.
How to treat warts
In children, warts usually go away without treatment.
In adults, warts are also completely harmless in most cases, but unlike children, sometimes they don't go away on their own.
Consultation with a dermatologist is necessary if:
- warts change shape, color, size;
- Warts hurt you;
- the number of warts increases.
There are many different methods that can be used to remove warts. The choice of this or that method depends on the age of the patient, the state of health, as well as the type of wart.
Wart - body gain
Often papillomas (warts) are mistaken for birthmarks. Warts, like birthmarks, can be removed in the same way. Everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, traditional surgery leaves its mark on the skin anyway.
Surgical removal of the warts is usually not recommended as the warts often grow back.
With cryodestruction and laser removal, it is not always possible to precisely control the depth of exposure to the tissue. With electrocoagulation, you can control the depth of exposure, but the risk of scarring remains. Therefore, a combination of several methods is sometimes used. Other treatments for warts include topical salicylic acid, duct tape, and chemical treatments.
Basic Warts Removal Methods
As practice shows, many patients try to get rid of them using folk methods. However, it is always worth understanding that folk methods alone are not very effective, and in some cases they can even turn out to be dangerous. The correct process is possible only if the specialist fights not only with the skin manifestations of the virus, but also with its base. There are several methods to get rid of these neoplasms:
- Radio waves. . . A relatively new but already proven method. With the help of a special device, the skin formation is exposed to a radio wave of a certain frequency. The advantage of the method is that you can remove both the wart itself and its root.
- Electrocoagulation.This term hides the cauterization of the neoplasm with a special electrode. Thanks to local anesthesia, under which all procedures are carried out, you can always be sure that you will not experience any negative sensations.
- A liquid nitrogen.Another well-known method. Nitrogen freezes the wart and its root, which makes for a really quick and high quality removal.
To remove warts, dermatologists can use:
- Cryotherapy(liquid nitrogen) is the most common method of removing vulgar warts in adults and older children and is not overly painful. But usually the process has to be repeated. And using this method on dark-skinned people can lead to the formation of dark spots on the skin.
- Electrosurgery and curettage. . . Electrosurgery (electrical moxibustion) is an effective way to remove vulgar, filiform, and plantar warts. Curettage is a method in which the wart is scraped off with a sharp knife or a special instrument (curette). After scratching, electrocoagulation is performed and a bandage is placed on the wound.
Often these two procedures are used together. A dermatologist can use curettage to remove warts before or after cauterization.
The doctor can also surgically remove the wart.
In cases where the above methods did not give positive results, the dermatologist can use one of the following methods:
- Laser treatment under local anesthesia;
- Cauterizing chemicals are often prescribed to treat flat warts. Such a peeling is carried out at home every day, for this salicylic and glycolic acid preparations are used;
- Immunotherapy in the treatment of warts is one way of activating the body's defenses. Is prescribed in cases when other forms of therapy have not brought positive results.
One of the types of immunotherapy is applying a special substance to the wart. An allergic reaction will occur around the treated warts that can help the body deal with them. Another type of immunotherapy is injecting interferon into the warts. Injections can boost immunity and encourage the body to fight the virus.
Unfortunately, there is no way to get rid of warts once and for all with a 100% guarantee. They can reappear in the old location and reappear in a new location. Sometimes it seems that new warts appear faster than old ones go away. This happens when the virus infects cells adjacent to the wart before the wart is removed. This is why new warts usually appear near where the old one was.
Self-treatment and removal
There are a variety of ways that folk remedy removal of warts is quite successful, but this by no means means that you should forget about traditional medicine and constantly self-medicate.
Any recipe for removing warts, any video for removing warts, reviews from people and cosmeticians - this is just an introductory material that shows that there is no consequence to remove warts in children and adults.
However, you should never experiment and jump to conclusions - any neoplasm on the human body should be shown to a doctor, examined by him using laboratory tests, and only then cured or removed. Even so, we decided to introduce you to some of the methods that are used to remove warts at home. We hope that, as we recommend, this material is for your information only.
Since the cost of removing warts in some clinics and beauty salons scares people a little, they try to treat neoplasms themselves, it happens that way.
Lightbulb treatment
A raw, medium-sized onion is soaked in vinegar for about two hours, cut, and tied to the wart overnight. The procedure is carried out until the wart disappears.
Treatment of wood ash
Wood ash, preferably fresh, should be diluted with plain water to form a homogeneous slurry, which is applied to the warts daily until they disappear.
Removal of warts with celandine
The wart is coated with fresh celandine juice in the morning and evening. The alkaloids they contain mean that warts can be treated quickly. They dry up and disappear. The process should be repeated until the wart is completely gone. Be careful when using celandine juice, it shouldn't get on healthy skin as it is quite corrosive.
Removal of warts and papillomas by cauterization
The method is painful, but very effective in many people's opinion. It is necessary to take a dry branch of a tree and hold it over an open fire. When it begins to smolder, you need to cauterize the neoplasm with heat. This should be done several times, after 5-7 days the wart will go away.
As you can see, in addition to the fact that you can buy drugs to remove warts from the pharmacy, you can also grow them in your own cottage or find them at your home. It's up to you to experiment or not to think about it, but we made our choices and have recommended it to you several times already.
After removal of the papilloma
Remember, simply removing the warts will not remove the virus from the body. After a long or not very long time, papillomas may reappear. This is due to the presence of virus particles. In order to get rid of the virus for a long time, prevention should be done. How can you do that?
Vitamin therapy. Conduct a two- to three-month course that focuses on the high concentration of zinc in the ingested vitamin and mineral complexes. Zinc inhibits the replication of virus particles. Thus, the human papillomavirus dies once and for all.
- Good personal hygiene. Good skin care.
- Avoid stress, overwork, normalize the daily routine. Sleep should last at least eight hours a day.
- Eat well.
- Do not try to overcool, avoid colds after removing the warts in the first three months, and better - six months.
- Check for intestinal dysbiosis. If available, take probiotic treatment.
- See an infectious disease specialist or an immunologist. Your doctor will prescribe antiviral drugs that stimulate your immune system.
If you are thinking of removing a wart, see a competent specialist first.
Papillomas with suspected malignancy are best removed during an appointment with an oncologist.
Such formations are best subjected to a histological control examination.
prevention
To prevent warts from appearing, dermatologists recommend the following:
- do not injure the warts;
- wear sandals or other special shoes when visiting the swimming pool and in public showers and changing rooms;
- don't touch other people's warts;
- Wipe dry feet with warts, moisture tends to spread the warts.