Is it normal to have warts

But home treatment may take longer. Less expensive home treatments include tape occlusion duct tape and nonprescription salicylic acid. Your ability to tolerate pain. Quicker but more painful methods include some topical medicines such as cantharidin and cryotherapy. Your risk of infection. Treatment can sometimes cause infection. If you have an impaired immune system or a condition such as diabetes or peripheral arterial disease, discuss your increased risk of infection with your doctor.

You may need to take special precautions. Your history of recurrent warts. If you have a history of warts that come back, you may want to talk with your doctor about more aggressive treatment methods. The location and number of warts. Large areas covered by warts may be better treated with salicylic acid than with more painful, potentially scarring methods. Painful treatments, such as cryotherapy, may not be appropriate for young children.

If you are older than age 60 and have never had warts, you may want to see a doctor to check any skin growths for skin cancer. The time needed for treatment. Topical putting medicine on the wart treatment is often slower than surgical treatment. Some treatment methods, such as immunotherapy applied by a health professional, require repeated office visits. In such cases, the expense and inconvenience may outweigh the benefits of treatment.

Prevention The main way to prevent warts is to avoid contact with the human papillomavirus HPV that causes warts. Tips on avoiding the human papillomavirus Avoid touching warts on yourself or others. Don't share razors, towels, socks, or shoes with another person. Someone with no visible warts can still be carrying the virus. Avoid walking barefoot on warm, moist surfaces where the wart virus may be alive. Wear shower shoes when using public showers, locker rooms, or pool areas.

Keep your feet dry. If your feet sweat heavily, wear socks that absorb moisture or wick it away from the skin. Avoid irritating the soles of your feet. Warts grow more easily if your skin has been injured or broken in some way. Tips on preventing warts from spreading Keep warts covered with a bandage or athletic tape. Don't bite your nails or cuticles, as this may spread warts from one finger to another.

Self-Care Home treatment is often the first treatment used for warts. Home treatment includes: Salicylic acid, which is currently considered the most desirable wart treatment, based on its effectiveness and safety. The treatment takes 2 to 3 months. Salicylic acid formulas include Compound W and Occlusal. Ask your doctor about how to use salicylic acid.

Tape occlusion duct tape , in which you use duct tape to cover the wart for a period of time. This treatment takes 1 to 2 months. Over-the-counter cryotherapy. There are home cryotherapy kits that you can buy without a prescription, such as Dr. Scholl's Freeze Away. These treatments may be safe for warts on the hands or feet but not for genital warts.

Follow all instructions carefully. Reducing plantar wart pain You can reduce plantar wart pain by: Wearing comfortable shoes and socks. Avoid high heels or shoes that increase pressure on your foot.

Padding the wart with doughnut-shaped felt or a moleskin patch that can be purchased at drugstores. Place the pad around the plantar wart so that it relieves pressure on the wart.

Also, consider placing pads or cushions in your shoes to make walking more comfortable. Using nonprescription medicines, such as aspirin, ibuprofen such as Advil , or acetaminophen such as Tylenol to help relieve pain. Do not give aspirin to anyone younger than 20 , because of the risk of Reye syndrome , a serious but rare illness. Be safe with medicines. Read and follow all instructions on the label. What to think about Salicylic acid treatments are often effective. Never cut or burn off a wart yourself.

Medicines If you decide to treat your warts, both nonprescription and prescription medicines are available. Nonprescription medicines Nonprescription medicines include: Salicylic acid, which softens the skin layers that form a wart so that they can be rubbed off.

Prescription medicines Medicines that your doctor may use or prescribe for you include: Retinoid cream Avita, Retin-A. It disrupts the wart's skin cell growth. Cantharidin Cantharone, Cantharone Plus. This medicine causes the skin under the wart to blister, lifting the wart off the skin.

This medicine is applied to the wart at your doctor's office. Immunotherapy medicines, which help your body's immune system fight viruses, including the human papillomavirus HPV that causes warts. These medicines may include imiquimod, contact sensitizers, and interferon.

Bleomycin injection, which destroys the skin containing the wart. But bleomycin isn't often used, because it is painful during and after the injection. What to think about Other medicines used for warts include 5-fluorouracil, which is more often used on genital warts , and cimetidine.

Surgery Surgery is an option if home treatment and treatment at your doctor's office have failed. Surgery choices The most common types of surgical treatment for wart removal include: Electrosurgery and curettage. Electrosurgery is burning the wart with an electrical current.

Curettage is cutting off the wart with a sharp knife or a small, spoon-shaped tool. The two procedures are often used together. Laser surgery. Different HPV strains cause different warts. These strains can transmit through close skin-to-skin contact and contact with items recently exposed to HPV. The virus can spread to other parts of the body through :. Having wet or damaged skin, such as a cut or scrape, increases the risk of infection.

For example, a person with cuts on their feet is more likely to develop a verruca from visiting public swimming pools. The transmission risk of warts is low in adults and higher in children and infants. People with a compromised or suppressed immune system have a higher risk for contracting an HPV strain leading to warts. Other transmissible HPV strains can lead to cervical, anal, penile, and vulvovaginal cancer. But these are not the strains that cause genital warts, although a person may carry and transmit multiple strains at once.

Warts typically disappear independently, so maintaining good hygiene and helping prevent further infection is an important first step in self-remedies. Products containing salicylic acid are available for home use. A person may be able to treat warts effectively using OTC products. Some people may recommend other remedies , such as putting duct tape on warts and certain forms of hypnosis.

But these remedies are purely anecdotal and have no medical benefit nor support. A person can help reduce their risk for catching or spreading warts. Warts are abnormal growths on the skin. They occur when an HPV strain infects the skin and causes rapid cell growth. Warts are common and often harmless, but they may lead to feelings of embarrassment. Warts can occur anywhere on the body and can appear as hardened lumps, flat circular patches, or thread-like protrusions.

They typically heal and disappear on their own, but surgical options are available for faster removal. Treatment options may involve applying salicylic acid, cryotherapy, laser treatment, immunotherapy, electrosurgery, and excision. They can:. Q: Are common warts contagious by touch? A: The virus that causes common warts, human papillomavirus HPV , is contagious. Children and people with weakened immune systems are particularly at risk of contracting HPV, which can be spread through skin-to-skin contact or through contact with an object or surface carrying the virus.

The risk of contracting HPV is especially high in warm, wet conditions, such as those found at a swimming pool or in a locker room. Q: Are common warts HPV? A: Common warts are caused by infection with human papillomavirus HPV , which is an umbrella term for over types of viruses.

Certain strains of HPV can cause common warts to develop on the hands, fingers and other non-genital areas of the body. Other strains of HPV can cause different types of warts to appear on different parts of the body, including sexually transmittable genital warts , or different conditions altogether, including, in rare cases, cervical cancer or anal cancer. Q: Are common warts the same as genital warts? A: No, common warts are not the same as genital warts. Though both types of wart are caused by the HPV group of viruses, the strains that cause each type are different and so are the methods of transmission.

Common warts cannot spread to the pubic area and genital warts cannot spread to the hands or other parts of the body.

Q: Can you get a common wart on your arm? A: Yes. Though common warts often develop on the hands or fingers, they can also appear anywhere else on the body other than the genital area. Q: What is the difference between common warts and plantar warts?

A: Both common warts and plantar warts are a product of the human papillomavirus HPV group of viruses. Unlike plantar warts, however, common warts can develop anywhere on the body, though most typically grow on the hands and fingers.

Plantar warts are found on the feet only. Q: What is the difference between common warts and water warts? A: Common warts are caused by infection with HPV. Water warts, also known as molluscum contagiosum, are caused by infection with the molluscum contagiosum virus. The infection causes small, painless raised bumps or lesions on the skin, which often appear in groups and typically clear up on their own.

Q: What kind of wart do I have? A: If you are concerned about a wart or another skin condition, you can use the Ada app to find out more about your symptoms. To receive a confirmed diagnosis, however, it is necessary to see a licensed doctor. Q: Do common warts bleed? A: A common wart should not bleed unless it is scraped, scratched or injured in some way. If a wart bleeds without a clear cause or bleeds profusely after injury, it is important to consult a doctor without delay.

Q: Can common warts be painful? A: While most warts do not cause pain, some can, especially if they grow in an area which is pressed on often, e. HPV affects only humans; it spreads from person to person by direct contact. With the important exception of the strains that are sexually transmitted see box , HPV is not very contagious. Most people with warts don't remember coming into contact with another case, possibly because it takes so long for a wart to develop after infection occurs.

Still, it's likely that most warts develop after HPV enters the body through a minute break in the skin. To continue reading this article, you must log in. Already a member? Login ». As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles.

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