Discover effective solutions for getting rid of painful plantar warts on your feet. Gain insights from top podiatrists on the latest treatment options and learn how to prevent the spread of this common skin condition.

Understanding Plantar Warts: Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis

Plantar warts are non-cancerous skin growths that develop on the soles of the feet, caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). They are often mistaken for corns or calluses, but can be identified by their small, fleshy, grainy appearance, hard and flat surface, and the presence of black pinpoints that indicate clotted blood vessels. The virus that causes plantar warts thrives in warm, moist environments, such as shower floors, locker rooms, and public swimming pools, and can spread through direct contact or sharing personal items.

Conventional Treatments for Plantar Warts

Most plantar warts do not require medical treatment and can go away on their own over time, typically within months or years. However, if the warts are causing pain or spreading, your doctor may recommend over-the-counter or prescription treatments, including:

• Salicylic acid: A topical medication that helps remove the outer layers of the wart, applied for 2-3 months.
• Duct tape: Covering the wart with duct tape for 1-2 months, then filing down the dead skin.
• Freezing (cryotherapy): Using a freezing spray or liquid nitrogen to freeze and remove the wart.
• Prescription medications: Stronger topical treatments or injections prescribed by your doctor.
• Surgical removal: Removing the wart through minor surgery or laser treatment.

Effective Home Remedies for Plantar Warts

In addition to conventional treatments, there are several effective home remedies that can help manage plantar warts, including:

1. Salicylic acid: Over-the-counter products containing salicylic acid can help gradually remove the wart’s layers.
2. Duct tape: Covering the wart with duct tape for extended periods can help soften and remove the outer layers.
3. Banana peel: The natural enzymes in banana peels may help break down the wart’s structure.
4. Apple cider vinegar: The acidity in apple cider vinegar can help dry out and remove the wart.
5. Garlic: The antiviral properties of garlic may help fight the HPV virus causing the wart.

Preventing the Spread of Plantar Warts

To prevent the spread of plantar warts, it’s important to take the following precautions:

• Avoid walking barefoot in public areas, such as locker rooms, shower floors, and swimming pools.
• Use your own towels, socks, and other personal items, and avoid sharing them with others.
• Keep your feet clean and dry, and regularly inspect them for any signs of warts.
• If you have a plantar wart, avoid touching it and wash your hands thoroughly after any contact.

When to Seek Medical Attention

If a plantar wart is causing significant pain, is not responding to home treatments, or is spreading, it’s important to seek medical attention from a podiatrist or dermatologist. Symptoms that warrant immediate medical care include:

• Increased pain, swelling, warmth, or redness around the wart
• Red streaks leading from the wart
• Pus or drainage from the wart
• Fever

The Benefits of Laser Treatment for Plantar Warts

For stubborn or recurrent plantar warts, laser treatment can be an effective option. Laser therapy uses targeted light energy to destroy the wart tissue, without damaging the surrounding healthy skin. This approach can be particularly beneficial for individuals with diabetes or poor circulation, who may have a harder time healing from other wart removal methods. Laser treatment is often performed in a podiatrist’s office and can provide long-lasting results with minimal discomfort or downtime.

Conclusion: Taking Control of Your Plantar Warts

Plantar warts can be a frustrating and persistent problem, but with the right treatment approach and preventive measures, you can effectively manage and eliminate this common skin condition. Whether you opt for over-the-counter remedies, home-based treatments, or seek professional medical care, it’s important to be persistent and monitor your progress closely. By taking proactive steps to address plantar warts, you can regain your comfort and confidence in your daily activities.

Plantar Warts: Care Instructions | Kaiser Permanente

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Overview

A plantar wart is a harmless skin growth. Plantar warts occur on the bottom of your feet and may be painful when you walk. A virus makes the top layer of skin grow quickly, causing a wart. Warts usually go away on their own in months or years.

Warts are spread easily. You can infect yourself again by touching the wart and then touching another part of your body. You also can infect others by sharing towels, razors, or other personal items.

Most plantar warts do not need treatment. But if warts cause you pain or spread, your doctor may recommend that you use an over-the-counter treatment. These include salicylic acid, duct tape, and freezing sprays. Your doctor may prescribe a stronger medicine to put on warts or may inject them with medicine. Your doctor also can remove warts through surgery or by freezing them.

Follow-up care is a key part of your treatment and safety. Be sure to make and go to all appointments, and call your doctor if you are having problems. It’s also a good idea to know your test results and keep a list of the medicines you take.

How can you care for yourself at home?

• Use salicylic acid or duct tape as your doctor directs. You put the medicine or the tape on a wart for a while and then file down the dead skin on the wart. You use the salicylic acid treatment for 2 to 3 months or the tape for 1 to 2 months.
• If your doctor prescribes medicine to put on warts, use it exactly as prescribed. Call your doctor if you think you are having a problem with your medicine.
• Wear comfortable shoes and socks. Avoid high heels or shoes that put a lot of pressure on your foot.
• Pad the wart with doughnut-shaped felt or a moleskin patch. You can buy these at a drugstore. Put the pad around the plantar wart so that it relieves pressure on the wart. You also can place pads or cushions in your shoes to make walking more comfortable.
• Take an over-the-counter medicine, such as acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), or naproxen (Aleve) if you have pain. Read and follow all instructions on the label.
• Do not take two or more pain medicines at the same time unless the doctor told you to. Many pain medicines have acetaminophen, which is Tylenol. Too much acetaminophen (Tylenol) can be harmful.

When should you call for help?

Call your doctor now or seek immediate medical care if:

• You have signs of infection, such as:
  • Increased pain, swelling, warmth, or redness.
  • Red streaks leading from a wart.
  • Pus draining from a wart.
  • A fever.

Watch closely for changes in your health, and be sure to contact your doctor if:

• You do not get better as expected.

Where can you learn more?

Go to https://www.healthwise.net/patientEd

Enter S429 in the search box to learn more about “Plantar Warts: Care Instructions”.

Plantar Wart Laser Treatment

Toronto Podiatrist Reveal A Most Effective Way To Get Rid of Those Pesky, Painful Warts On Your Feet

When you find your first wart, it seems like a small problem that is easy to ignore. It’s ugly, but you hope it will just go away by itself.

The reality is that warts can quickly become much more bothersome than you first imagined.

Warts can spread. They can become bigger — at an alarming rate.

And as warts expand and grow, they can be extremely painful. Depending on where your wart is located, you may have a hard time going about your day to day activities. Warts on the bottom of your feet (plantar warts) can make playing sports (or even walking) uncomfortable or painful. If you have a wart, or a small cluster of warts, it is important to address the problem before it has a chance to spread.

Plantar Warts

Plantar warts are noncancerous skin growths on the soles of your feet caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), which enters your body through tiny cuts in the skin. Plantar warts develop beneath the foot pressure points in the heels or balls of your feet. While most plantar warts aren’t a serious health concern, they may be bothersome or painful.

Symptoms & Causes of Plantar Warts

Plantar warts can be mistaken for corns or callouses. To distinguish, look for:

• Small, fleshy, grainy bumps on the soles of your feet
• Hard, flat growths with a rough surface and well-defined boundaries
• Gray or brown lumps with one or more black pinpoints – are small, clotted blood vessels, not “wart seeds”
• Bumps that interrupt the normal lines and ridges in the skin of your feet.

Warts occur through direct contact with the human papillomavirus (HPV), of which there are more than 100 types. Some types of HPV cause warts on your feet. The virus that causes plantar warts thrives in warm, moist environments, such as shower floors, locker rooms and public swimming areas. It is often contracted by walking barefoot in public places. It may also pass from person to person. If you have a plantar wart, you can even spread the virus to other places on your own foot by touching or scratching. The virus can also spread by contact with skin shed from a wart.

Everyone’s immune system responds to warts differently, so not everyone who comes in contact with HPV develops warts. Plantar warts are more likely to appear on the feet of people with:

• Multiple exposures to the virus
• Damaged or cut skin
• Sweaty skin

Andrew Klayman B.Sc., D.P.M. says that some patients are more susceptible to the wart-causing virus, as some people are more likely to catch a cold. Children and teenagers tend to be especially vulnerable to plantar warts.

Make an Appointment with Andrew Klayman D.P.M. to Treat Your Plantar Warts.

Treatments For Plantar Warts

There have been dozens of treatments for warts in recent years, ranging from medical options from Liquid Nitrogen , to at-home or over-the-counter remedies. Many of them have one thing in common: the fact that most of these treatments do not work well or at all.

Getting rid of most types of warts is extremely difficult, especially with warts that penetrate deep below the surface of your skin, like the plantar wart.

Treatment option for these warts would typically involve repeated painful freezing procedures and scraping and digging at your skin. You would often have to be subjected to this awful procedure every week until the wart was gone, which could sometimes take months to years.

But who wants to take the time to visit the your health care provider every week, for months on end, and subject themselves to endless freezing-and-scraping, simply hoping the wart will eventually give up and go away?

An Incredible (And Incredibly FAST and EFFECTIVE) New Treatment Option For Eliminating Warts

The times have changed, and we now have much better treatment options available to us. Lasers are now being used to treat all kinds of problems, and warts are one of them. A laser is one of the quickest and most effective ways to get rid of your warts for good.

But not just any laser is appropriate or properly fitted to the job. Many lasers on the market simply aren’t strong enough. Others fail to deliver the right kind of beam in the correct way. There are lasers, perhaps … but not the right lasers.

The correct laser has to be powerful enough to destroy the virus causing the wart as well as cut off the blood supply to the wart. And it needs to do this safely and effectively.

One type of laser is perfectly suited for this job: the Nd:YAG 1064nm. This type of laser uses a wavelength that has the capability of deeply penetrating below the surface of your skin, ignoring the melanin there (the skin pigment that would otherwise build up heat on the surface of the skin instead of allowing it to penetrate). A Nd:YAG 1064nm laser is able to target the blood vessels beneath the surface of your skin and heat them in such a way as to effectively cook the wart virus dead and simultaneously cut off the blood supply to your wart.

Unlike most laser treatments, the Nd:YAG 1064nm laser has just the right wavelength and design to create the perfect laser beam that targets your warts and the blood supply beneath them without burning your skin.

Other lasers just aren’t able to heat the blood supply long enough, precisely enough, or with enough power to achieve real results.

Will The Laser Treatment Hurt?

When you compare the laser treatment to the other options for treating painful plantar warts, the laser option is relatively painless. Because of the heat being delivered, and because it’s going at a wart (which is already quite sensitive), you are sure to feel a few zaps during the treatment, But it’s over quickly and the area is locally anaesthetized. And it’s not that big of a deal. It’s over and done.

Just as the wart is then over and done.

The most common method of removing warts from the feet in previous years involved freezing the skin around the warts, and then scraping away at your wart for a good 10 to 20 minutes with a scalpel. Both the freezing and the scraping were very painful, even if the freezing partially numbed the surrounding skin. And the results were minimal. You might have to come back for 10 to 15 more visits before your plantar wart was actually gone.

Laser wart-removal treatment only needs to be performed generally once or twice, so you won’t have to go through the pain and discomfort again and again for months.

When you have a wart that will not go away on its own, like a painful plantar wart on the bottom of your foot, you really need to have it looked at by a Podiatrist. The Genesis plus laser treatment protocol is a safe, effective, and one of the fastest working treatments available.

If you want to get rid of your plantar warts for good and in the shortest amount of time, Laser treatments are the way to go.

Call us today to arrange an appointment and get your warts removed once and for all. It’s a simple procedure, and incredibly effective.

Grab your phone and call us right now at 416-928-3338

Andrew Klayman’s Wart Prevention Recommendations:

• Avoid direct contact with warts. This includes your own warts
• Keep your feet clean and dry. Change your shoes and socks daily
• Don’t go barefoot in public areas. Wear shoes or sandals in public pools and locker rooms
• Don’t pick at warts. Picking may spread the virus

CONTACT ANDREW KLAYMAN’S PODIATRIST OFFICE TODAY TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PLANTAR WARTS AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO MANAGE THEM. CALL US AT 416-928-3338 OR CONTACT US TO SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT.

Why doesn’t a dry cough go away for a long time? – reference book Omega-Kyiv

Dry cough is not an independent problem and disease. Cough is a reflex of the body that occurs due to the appearance of an allergic or bacterial pathogen. It is for this reason that cough is a concomitant symptom of more than 100 different diseases, from the usual SARS to oncology.

Types of dry cough:

• Acute. Such a cough begins abruptly, but with proper treatment quickly turns into a wet one and disappears after a few days;
• Drawstring. This type of cough is characterized by a rather slow course and can torment a person for more than three months;
• Chronic. Such a cough lasts more than three months and does not go away when taking medicines with an expectorant effect.

Diseases accompanied by dry cough:

• Acute respiratory viral infection. SARS and acute respiratory infections are the most common cause of cough. A cough can be wet or dry, pass quickly or accompany the human body for several weeks. The most effective way to deal with ARVI is to fight cough using inhalations from natural herbs;
• Pneumonia. This is a complication that occurs as a result of secondary infection after an acute respiratory viral infection;
• Whooping cough, measles. Children’s infectious diseases, which are characterized by a strong dry cough;
• Tuberculosis. A disease that affects the respiratory system and causes a prolonged dry cough. There are two forms of the disease: open and closed. The first is characterized by expectoration of sputum with blood, while the second is not accompanied by particularly striking signs;
• Chronic bronchitis.
• A disease in which there is indolent inflammation in the bronchi;
• Oncological disease of the respiratory system. Prolonged dry cough can be caused by oncological lesions of the lungs, bronchi, throat and trachea. Each of these types of cancer is accompanied by a hysterical cough that does not go away after taking expectorants. If a cough occurs that does not go away for more than two weeks, you must contact the clinic and undergo a comprehensive examination, conduct a bronchoscopy and be tested for tumor markers;
• Allergic cough. A prolonged cough can be caused by an allergic reaction to food, animal hair, mold in the apartment, etc.;
• Asthma. Bronchial asthma is one of the most common diseases of the respiratory system. With asthma, a dry cough occurs, accompanied by attacks of suffocation;
• Professional problems. People who work in difficult conditions (mines, sand and granite quarries) may experience a chronic dry cough due to regular irritation of the respiratory system;
• Environmental factors. Frequent use of household chemicals with a high content of chlorine or outdoor air polluted with exhaust gases become the causes of a prolonged dry cough. Regular chemical poisoning has an irritating effect on the organs of the respiratory system.

How to get rid of a cough?

To cure chronic dry cough, first of all it is necessary to know exactly the source of irritation or the cause of the occurrence. To do this, you should contact the medical center and undergo a comprehensive examination.

If the cough is due to a complication of influenza or SARS, you should re-examine and resume treatment. Sessions of inhalation and massage become the most effective.

How to quickly get rid of a cough: effective remedies for adults and children – December 14, 2022

We bet you have already visited the pharmacy more than once this season

Photo: Irina Sharova / 72.RU

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around whom you will not ask, everyone is sick. Kindergartens are closed for quarantine, and clinics are crowded, everyone wants to get an appointment with their next SARS. At this time, advice on how to recover quickly is especially relevant, because for many, a long sick leave is an unaffordable luxury. Our colleagues from Vokrug Sveta spoke with infectious disease specialist, executive director of the National Scientific Society of Infectious Diseases Denis Usenko .

Please note: doctors do not recommend self-treatment and, at the slightest sign of deterioration, they advise you to contact specialists.

— The common cold is not a diagnosis, but a common, “popular” name for all seasonal diseases of the upper respiratory tract, which can be both viral and bacterial in nature, which is very important in treatment, Denis Usenko explained.

The doctor notes that usually the body is able to cope with ARVI on its own, but in order for this process to be less painful, it is necessary to stop the symptoms correctly.

If you have a cough with sputum that is difficult to pass, the expert advises using mucolytics – they are also effective for persistent rhinitis and sinusitis. Choose drugs based on carbocysteine.

The action of mucolytics can be seen on the first or second day of administration. If you don’t get better, you should see a doctor. But it is undesirable to bring down the temperature below 38.5 degrees.

– Use paracetamol or ibuprofen-based antipyretics for high fever, but only when the temperature is above 38.5 degrees, unless some other chronic medical condition requires otherwise. By raising the temperature, the body fights the infection,” said Denis Usenko.

If you suffer from a sore throat, the expert recommends remedies based on lysozyme.

Lysozyme is an enzyme in the human body that has antimicrobial and antiviral effects, but retains normal microflora, and also helps to strengthen local immunity.

The doctor advises not to rely heavily on traditional medicine, especially when it comes to children. Onions, honey, tea, lemon, garlic, cranberries and other products are not a panacea for all ills, but various herbs and herbal products can cause an allergic reaction.

We recently prepared a step-by-step guide for those who got sick on the first day. We all know that sometimes a cold can go away just as suddenly as it started. Let’s see how we can help her.

Morning , the first day of illness. If you wake up with a reddened throat and stuffy nose, be sure to gargle to remove the buildup. Therapist Sergey Cheryomushkin advises to take a solution of propolis tincture and water half an hour before meals (1 tablespoon of infusion to 5 tablespoons of water). Next, rinse your nose with saline. For breakfast, drink tea with lemon and a tablespoon of rosehip syrup. Of the drugs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can be used. Before leaving the house, put drops in your nose.

Sergey Cheryomushkin — Chief Therapist of the Central Directorate of Health — a branch of Russian Railways, Head of the Department, therapist of the highest qualification category, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Propaedeutics of Internal Diseases and Gastroenterology of the Moscow State Medical University.

If you feel unwell during the day at your workplace, don’t wait for the evening – start treatment right away.

– Ascorbic acid can provide first aid. But do not use tablets, but powder, which penetrates the blood faster and does no harm if taken on an empty stomach. When treating, you will need 1 gram of ascorbic acid: pour it into a teaspoon, eat it and drink it with tea, you can with lemon. If gargling at work is not possible, an inhalation spray will come in handy, for example, based on iodine with menthol, the expert advises.

The evening of is the time of the most active fight against a cold. Powdered aspirin can also be used. The doctor also suggests choosing a drink based on rosehip, blackcurrant, sea buckthorn, honey and lemon. Drink it in small sips, warm, throughout the evening.

Refrain from hot baths, with a cold, the patient needs only dry heat.

– Moisture promotes the growth of bacteria, and our task is to reduce their number as much as possible. But you can make a mustard foot bath. Dilute 2 tablespoons of dry mustard in hot water, lower your legs and hold for 15-20 minutes, carefully adding hot water from time to time. After the procedure, vigorously rub your feet with a towel, put on dry woolen socks, the therapist concludes. – Before going to bed, you can chop a few cloves of garlic in a plate, a head of onion and put next to the bed.

General practitioner Alexandra Myznikova reminds that today there is not a single antiviral “cold medicine” with proven effectiveness.

— The production of antibodies and the elimination of the virus from the body takes a certain time, the duration of which also does not depend on the amount of pepper, garlic, lemon and other miracle foods eaten. Therefore, the well-known aphorism that “a cold is treated with drugs for 7 days, and without drugs for a week” remains true today, she says.

It’s not a secret for anyone that you should not drink antiviral and antibiotics on your own in case of SARS. It is better to consult a doctor who will prescribe a competent treatment. But if there is no time at all and you don’t want to fall out of the usual rhythm of life for a long time, natural honey can be an excellent helper with a dry cough, relieve inflammation and strengthen the immune system. The main thing is to use it correctly.

The first thing to remember is that honey cannot stand high temperatures. When heated above 40 ºС, honey changes its structure, as a result, hydroxymethylfurfural is formed in it. And if you heat honey over 50 ºС, it will completely lose almost all useful properties.

— It is better to eat honey with hot tea or hot milk as a bite. If you want to mix it into a drink, you can only heat it up to 40 ºС in order to avoid the formation of harmful substances, – said Gennady Kovalev, chairman of the regional society of beekeepers “Ural bee”. – As for the storage of honey, the optimum temperature is +8 ºС. If you observe the temperature regime, honey can be stored for a very long time without losing its beneficial qualities.

It is worth noting that horror stories about the harmfulness of hydroxymethylfurfural in honey are greatly exaggerated if consumed in a reasonable amount. Oxymethylfurfural is formed by heating carbohydrate compounds, in this case, fructose, in an acidic environment. GOST limits the permissible content of hydroxymethylfurfural in 1 kilogram of honey to 25 milligrams. The content of hydroxymethylfurfural in fresh honey is close to zero, in overheated honey it is more than 80 mg/kg.

Back in 1975, the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences conducted studies that showed that the daily intake of hydroxymethylfurfural into the body with food in the amount of 2 milligrams per 1 kilogram of weight does not pose a danger to humans. Therefore, if you use even heated honey in a reasonable amount, there will be no harm to health. For example, in carbonated drinks, the content of hydroxymethylfurfural can even reach 300-350 mg / l.

— Honey is a recognized remedy in the treatment and prevention of colds. But it must be remembered that this is by no means a medicine, it is a product that comes in addition to the main doctor’s prescriptions. In the period of acute respiratory infections and acute respiratory viral infections, only natural honey and its products can have a positive effect on the body, accelerate its recovery, – said general practitioner Elena Shabunina . – For example, acacia honey is known as a good general tonic, linden honey has expectorant and anti-inflammatory properties in diseases of the throat and bronchi. Mustard honey has a good effect on inflammatory processes in the body, has a healing effect on the respiratory system. And May (early) honey has bactericidal and expectorant properties.

If, having fallen ill, you dared to call your mother or grandmother and tell about what is happening, then you are provided with an iodine net and socks with salt. Which of these will really help, and which is useless and dangerous – we figured out in a cold test.

Many people know that garlic can be used to prevent colds. It produces phytoncides – active substances that kill microbes. But people with gastritis and a sick stomach should be careful with garlic.

Gargling with salt and soda helps to relieve the well-being of infectious diseases of the throat. This solution can eliminate swelling and reduce the symptoms of tonsillitis, stomatitis, gingivitis and other diseases.

But making iodine mesh to relieve cough is not worth it. Iodine has a slight warming effect, but nothing more. And if you draw them on the throat and back, then it will easily enter the body. An excess of iodine can lead to unpleasant consequences, such as hyperthyroidism.

Hot potato inhalations against the common cold also do not leave the body without a trace, they are especially contraindicated for children. During such inhalation, it is difficult to control the temperature, and too hot steam can cause burns to the nasopharyngeal mucosa and damage to the vocal cords. In general, we have already talked about the benefits and harms of potatoes.

But what about rubbing the body with vinegar or vodka against the temperature of ? When a person has a fever and not all drugs can be given, rubdowns work well. But do not forget that before the procedure, the same vinegar must be diluted. If you start wiping yourself with essence, you will, of course, forget about the temperature, but only because you will get burns.

Doctors do not recommend dripping a solution with honey into the nose in case of a runny nose, because honey is an allergen. If you don’t know if you are allergic to this product or not, why take the risk? Moreover, due to washing the nose with honey, Quincke’s edema may begin.

Raspberry Jam really helps reduce fever. Raspberries are a good aspirin, and jam can be consumed if you feel unwell. Assuming you don’t have any allergies.

Doctors will not mind if you drink mulled wine to prevent colds. Just don’t go overboard with prevention. But when already sick, it will be useless.

Black radish juice and honey will save you from bronchitis. Together they turn into an effective expectorant, thanks to this combination, sputum is well discharged. But do not forget that radish is a highly irritating product, and not everyone can do it. For example, if you have gastritis or pancreatitis, expect problems.