Benefits of Having a Podiatrist Treat Plantar Warts

Are you suffering from plantar warts? If you don’t know what they are, a plantar wart is a small growth on the body. The human papillomavirus (HPV) causes it and it generally occurs on the foot’s sole, particularly on the heel. These warts are often harmless and can even vanish without any treatment within the first few months of their occurrence. However, sometimes they can also cause pain, discomfort and cosmetic concerns. But more serious is the fact that the virus that causes the wart is highly contagious and passes between people through direct contact with the viral particles (skin-to-skin contact), but can even be passed by indirect contact such as walking barefoot on contaminated surfaces (e.g., public areas like gym, shower, locker rooms etc.), shoes, socks, sports equipment and towels.

Why Can Self-Treatment Be Harmful?

Never try to treat a plantar wart on your own. Activities like picking at them with fingernails or objects like nail clippers or pumice stones, can even cause the transference of infection to hands or other body parts.

Why Should You See a Podiatrist?

The best person who can help you keep warts from multiplying and spreading is a professional podiatrist i.e., a foot doctor. A foot doctor or podiatrist knows how they should find out the cause of occurrence and spread of the virus and how it could be removed. Thus, there are many facets to the treatment which a common person cannot know. Hence you should hand yourself to a podiatrist for treating your plantar warts.

Benefits of Having a Podiatrist Treat Plantar Warts

There are many types of plantar warts and also of HPV virus. Some of these wart lesions are also categorised as benign tumours due to the similar mechanism of an uncontrolled increase in cell growth and reproduction. On the other hand, some types of warts can even actually turn into cancer, but this is very rare in the foot. It’s also important to differentiate a wart from corn. Depending upon the location, age, the patient’s immune system, the subtype of virus etc. warts look different which only a podiatrist can identify and then determine the line of treatment. A podiatrist can also determine whether the wart will disappear without any treatment (especially in young children) or will persist longer due to no treatment and become more resistant.

There are several types of treatments including occlusion (covering the warts, not suggested as the main treatment), Salicylic Acid (& other types of acid treatments like trichloroacetic acid), Cryotherapy (freezing the wart off with liquid nitrogen), Canthacur (treatment with the secretion of Blistering Beetle), SWIFT Machine (microwave therapy), LASER, Cauterization, Bleomycin, 5-Fu (5-Flurouracil = Efudex cream), Aldera (imiquimod), and so on.

So, you can see that the treatment of plantar wart is not a common man’s cup of tea. If you want a high success rate in the treatment, you should better get it treated from a professional podiatrist. So, have you started looking for one?