Dermatologist or Podiatrist?

[X and G's mom]

I had one on my heel when I was in 3rd grade and they had to dig it out. It was on a blood vessel. It was no fun.
Fast forward MANY years.... My DD11 had some on her fingers. We had done EVERYTHING duct tape, freezing at the Dermatologist. Finally, I used vinegar. A little vinegar on a cotton ball with a band-aid over it. It worked!!! She'd had them for years. Who knew that vinegar would do the trick.
I agree that on the foot may be different though.

 

[TiggerStac]

I'm in the process of treating our oldest's w/his pedi's office. We went in Monday after trying to treat at home w/no luck. They did the freeze treatment. We saw NP for the first treatment and his will take several treatments. She did shave away some dead skin before she did the freezing.

He didn't feel anything. We had to do bandaids/bacatracian until today. Starting tonight I need to give him a foot bath and use a pummice stone on the area until we go back. Then it starts all over again. He'll go at least 3 times, once every 2 weeks.

ETA: my son's is on the bottom of his foot, on his heel area.

 

[mommy4]

My son has a huge wart on the side of his foot facing the inside. Does anyone know what kind of wart this is? It's quite large and it rubs against the inside of his shoe. We have tried the freezing stuff and are now trying the compound w bandaid thing with medicine, but it keeps falling off. Maybe we'll try the duct tape!
I think we are going to have to take him in for help with it though if that doesn't work.

 

[Mrs. Bradbury]

All 3 of my kids had an outbreak of plantar warts one summer - I think it was the neighborhood pool - and we used a couple of different routes. For my oldest I took him to a dermatologist who froze them off over many months. The freezing hurt a lot; it's like a blister. He's also a drama queen, so YMMV . . . with the other 2 I used duct tape. It worked like a charm! It does take a while and the skin can get pretty nasty looking, but it worked for us. No warts since (we put in our own pool).

A PP is right, plantar warts can be very, very deep and take repeated efforts to get rid of them. That was the problem with my oldest. I think I caught the others before they had been there long.

 

[dis75ney]

DS8 (at the time) got several warts on his foot right after our trip to Disney. We took him to our local NP at first, who tried to freeze them off. It didn't work, so she referred us to a podiatrist. The podiatrist gave us two prescriptions...one for liquid Zantac, and one for Aldara (a cream used by patient undergoing treatment for skin cancer). He said he didn't know how the two meds worked together, but they did. DS took the Zantac once daily, and then we would smear the Aldara on the warts, cover with a gauze pad, and then cover with duct tape. We would change the covering every 48 hours and cut off any hanging skin/wart, since DS said that the hangings distracted him. The warts were gone within two weeks with no pain whatsoever...

 

[2Eskiedogs]

My oldest had numerous plantar warts on the bottom of his feet. Our family doctor used a tool to freeze them off. We had tried compound W and the otc freezing medicine. Since going to the doctor they didn't come back.

My youngest son had a wart on his finger and on his foot. I used apple cider vinegar soaked on a cotton ball, placed it on the wart and covered with a bandaid overnight. Each day I redid the dipped cotton ball and bandaid. Within a week, they turned black and fell off.

It's been over several months and they haven't come back yet, so I'm assuming they are gone.

 

[flipflopmom]

I used duct tape, pumice stone after 48 hours, new duct tape. Not pretty, but it worked! It was a very deep, painful wart. We bought a canister of the stuff to freeze off one from DD's hand.

 

[princessmom29]

That is good to know. I said plantar because I thought they were all plantar on the foot. I am going to try a few at home remedies first and see what happens.

A plantar wart is a flat wart on the sole of the foot. They can also occur on the pad of the toes, particularly the big toe. They are different from the bumpy raised warts that can occur on any part of the body. Most of what I have read says that the difference in growth process is at least partly due to the pressure from stepping down on them.

 

[MrsPete]

I had a nasty plantar's wart once, and -- thinking it was nothing and would go away on its own -- I let it go 'til it was really large. The podiatrist dug it out with a thing that looked like a melon baller. It wasn't bad at all, and mine has never come back (apparently that's a frequent problem).

I didn't know about duct tape. I'd give that a try first. It's cheap, and if it works you've saved money. I'd give it a week, and if it's not showing signs of improvement, then I'd go to the doctor.

 

[Calliaz]

FWIW, I had one as a teen. I went to the podiatrist who scheduled me to have it removed. I had some instructions of things to do in preparation (I had tried all the soaking, etc.). It came out on it's own 2 days before the procedure.

 

[SILLYANDI]

After seeing both a podiatrist AND a dermatologist and doing the freeze method weekly for 8 weeks with each I got fed up, put duct tape over my son's warts and they fell off after 2 weeks of constant coverage. I could have saved hundreds of dollars in co-pays had I tried this 1st!

Soak the area in warm water for 10-15 minutes. Cut a piece of duct tape just a little bigger then the wart and apply it directly to the wart. Anytime the tape falls off repeat the process until the warts are gone. It was much more effective and much less painful (for my son and pocketbook!)

 

[LMC]

I had plantar warts 20 yrs ago and this worked for me and they have not come back. The doctor refused to treat it because it covered the entire heel of my foot and said I'd be left with a huge hole and this is what he told me to do....
soak in warm water for 15 minutes
rub with a pumice stone
put compound W on it

do this routine every night. I don't remember putting bandaids on mine but I must have as no one else in the family ever got them. It took 2-3 months for it to clear up but I am not kidding, it was a HUGE spot. Just remember that the germs will be on everything you use so get rid of it when you are through with treatment (bucket, pumice, etc)