While anyone can get warts, it seems like kids get them more often than adults do. The good news is that most warts won’t make you sick or cause a health problem, and if a wart is bothering you or your child, a dermatologist can remove it.
What is a wart?
Viruses from the human papillomaviruses (HPV) family cause warts. HPV viruses are like other germs that love small cuts and scratches. Once the virus finds a place on your skin, a wart begins to develop. Warts can grow for many months before they are visible, making it quite challenging to know exactly what caused them. Warts are relatively contagious. If you touch a surface or anything else someone with a wart has used, you can pick up HPV.
Do warts hurt my child?
Most warts don’t hurt. But a wart can be annoying if it’s on a part of your body that gets bumped or touched all the time. Although most warts are painless, a wart on the bottom of the foot, known as a plantar wart, can cause discomfort, almost like having a stone in your shoe 24/7.
How are warts treated?
The treatment for a wart will depend on the type of wart. For some kinds of warts, time is the treatment plan, just waiting for them to go away on their own. Other options, again depending on the type of wart, may include cryotherapy, in which the doctor uses liquid nitrogen to freeze the wart, and a scab usually forms as the skin heals. This treatment is generally repeated every 1 to 3 weeks for a few months to fully kill the virus that causes the wart. Laser treatment may be used for stubborn warts that haven’t gone away with other kinds of treatment.
If you are experiencing warts and don’t know where to turn, the board-certified dermatologists at Forefront Dermatology are here to help. Find a location near you today.
