Plantar warts aren’t medically serious, but they can pose considerable issues with comfort as they develop on the soles of your feet. Making matters more frustrating, plantar warts can be tenacious and difficult to treat on your own.
To effectively eliminate plantar warts, the team here at Neuhaus Foot and Ankle, with 10 locations throughout Tennessee, recommends skipping weaker, over-the-counter products in favor of in-office treatments that make quick work of the unwanted growths.
Here’s a look at plantar warts, the five treatments we offer, and why they excel in eliminating plantar warts from your feet.
Plantar warts are the result of a viral infection, more specifically, certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). This virus thrives in damp and dark environments, such as locker rooms or public swimming areas, and you can easily become infected if your feet aren’t protected.
Once the virus enters your body, it can cause growths on the soles of your feet, often in areas that bear weight, which make plantar warts very uncomfortable.
As we mentioned, there are over-the-counter products for plantar warts, but they often aren’t effective at eradicating these growths.
At our practice, we’ve had great success with the following treatments:
With cryotherapy, we use liquid nitrogen to freeze the wart. After your treatment, the wart will fall off. Please note that you may need a series of cryotherapy treatments to address numerous or large warts.
Another approach for treating plantar warts is with prescription-strength salicylic acid that burns away the wart.
This treatment is based on a toxin found in blister beetles. Cantharone is a topical solution applied directly to your warts, where it creates a blister. When the blister heals, the wart will be gone.
We can also use pulsed-dye laser treatments, which treat warts from a different angle — by closing off the tiny blood vessel attached to the wart.
If your warts are resistant to treatments and recur, we can try intralesional injections that contain Candida test antigen. In plain English, this is an immunotherapy treatment that treats the HPV virus on a system-wide level.
If you’re tired of struggling with uncomfortable plantar warts, please contact one of our locations in Hermitage, Brentwood, Nashville, Mount Juliet, Waverly, Smyrna, Gallatin, Columbia, Pulaski, or Lebanon, Tennessee, to find out which treatment is right for you.
