Plantar Wart Treatments: There are many Plantar Wart treatments available on the market some of them work occasionally others simply do not work. A little about skin anatomy there are three layers of skin firstly the epidermis under this is the Dermis and below this is subcutaneous fat. It must be understood that all warts including plantar warts infect only the epidermis which is the very top layer of the skin the epidermis is generally of uniform thickness throughout the body one notable exception to this is the plantar surface of the foot this is the reason why plantar warts will get deeper on the bottom of the foot, simply because the epidermis is deeper.
This is why plantar wart treatments are much more difficult on the sole of the foot. Plantar wart treatments can consist of over the counter medications, laser treatments, cryotherapy (or freezing usually done with liquid nitrogen) and surgical removal.
Over the counter medications contain an strong acids that will destroy the skin cells the big problem with these is that they can cause damage to healthy tissue that surrounds the plantar wart. These should be used only with extreme care as serious damage can result to tissue.
One of the main things we are asked regarding warts in children is do I use plantar wart treatments or will the warts go away in time, sure some warts in children will spontaneously resolve with no intervention, it is safe to leave a single wart however if it gets bigger or a second third or more develop then it is essential that you have a professional consultation to decide which of the plantar wart treatments should be used.
My advice to parents is they must have a plantar wart professionally assessed before simply ignoring it unfortunately we see far to many children present with 7 or more plantar warts this makes treatment much more difficult, and it is more distressing for a young child.
At Brighton podiatry plantar warts are a special interest of ours, we have developed an new method of plantar wart treatments this method employs the use of a laser to treat plantar warts. Most patients say it causes minimal pain and the results so far are running at better than 90%
If you are suffering from plantar warts make an appointment and we will discuss all the plantar wart treatments available and discuss which is the best one for your particular case.
