What Are Verrucas?

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Plantar warts caused by a viral infection can disturb your routine life.

Have you experienced very painful plane warts on the lower side of your feet? It is the infamous verrucas. It is also known as the plantar wart and its presence on the ball or heel of the foot can cause a serious disturbance while walking. How do you get these warts? How dangerous they are and how you can manage and treat warts? This article will help you understand these things.

Human papillomavirus, the cause of plantar warts?

The verrucas warts are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). It is a resistant virus and is present normally on your skin. You develop warts only when due to one reason or the other, your immunity is suppressed e.g., due to HIV, flu and malnutrition.

A small wound on the skin can allow the virus present on the surface to enter the skin. In the skin, the virus fight with the body's immune system for months. If the immune system fails to brush it out, the virus damages the local skin cells and develops a wart. This wart can grow singularly or a group of warts can develop (mosaic warts).

How dangerous is a verruca?

Although these warts appear like skin cancer, they are not malignant and do not spread to other areas. If however, new lesions begin to develop in the surrounding skin, you should seek medical assistance.

The verrucas don't cause any harm other than causing a severe disturbance in your walking equilibrium. Moreover, a normal body will quickly develop immunity and the wart will disappear quickly. If however, the wart doesn't disappear for months and is painful, medical assistance should be sought from your GP or Doctor.

How to manage and treat warts?

Managing warts and verrucas depends on how severe and how long is it. A milder wart should be left to dry out on its own. Until it is drying out, you can modify your lifestyle to avoid unnecessary walking. You should replace your hard sole shoes with soft soles. If it is getting painful, some pain killer can be helpful. Keep an eye on the lesion if it develops into an open wound.

If however, the wart is severe as well as persistent, you should go to the hospital. Treating warts is a cumbersome process. The doctor will use different methods for verruca treatment.

Needling

It is a surgical procedure in which the wart is punctured with a needle and its junction with the skin is cut. The procedure is done under local anaesthesia. The process may be unpleasant and you can prefer other treatments over it.

Salicylic acid

Over the counter, salicylic acid treatment is used very often. It works by exfoliating the skin cells. The use of 60% salicylic acid will dry out the wart. An earlier study by Steele and his colleagues found that 60% salicylic acid treatment is very effective and safe for plantar warts.

Cryotherapy

In this procedure, the wart is treated by freezing it with liquid nitrogen. A 2010 study has found that cryotherapy has a more cure rate (39%) than salicylic acid treatment (24%).

Microwave treatment

In this method, the wart is killed by microwaves. It is a very effective photodynamic therapy method and is gaining acceptance worldwide. The microwave produces heat that kills the wart very selectively.

Other methods

The methods used for genital warts e.g., laser therapy, light therapy etc... can also be used as specialist treatments for verrucas. The waterproof plaster can be placed on the wart to avoid infection.

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