I had a plantar wart on my foot. So I tried a drugstore cure to help pull out the root at home. Here's what to expect from using a Salicylic acid patch like I did.
I blamed my plantar's wart on my unparalleled commitment to fitness. And therefore I blamed fitness for spending my Friday night pulling out a plantar wart root.
It's the kind of injury a 15 year old boy on swim team, or those elite marathoners who run until they poop in their pants would get.
With my running schedule amounting to chasing a rogue backyard chicken back into its (admittedly delightful) chicken coop I decided me getting a wart was probably just bad luck.
So the plan to terminate this little toe lump began. I'm not new to conducting medical experiments on myself.
There was the frozen yogurt tampon treatment for yeast infections for example. Or the continuously drinking water for a bladder infection treatment. Both are based on science and both work surprisingly well.
I remember being very young, maybe 7 or 8 and having a plantar wart. It was on the bottom of my foot and had to be cut out by my doctor. This was back in the day when doctors actually doctored. Mine even knew how to clean out ear wax and give stitches.
I wasn't looking forward to having a doctor dig a hole out of my foot so like a sensible person, I tried to dig a hole out of my foot myself.
Not with a knife, but with Salicylic acid, the active ingredient that gets rid of warts by killing the skin. It's a little more scientific than that but that's the gist of it. And it's much less terrifying than pulling out a wart with tweezers or a pin.
Table of Contents
How to Get Rid of Plantar Warts
- Buy a wart removal kit. They're all basically the same. My pharmacist recommended the cheapest one on the shelf because it came with a tiny Salicylic pad and bandaids which would work well for the bizarre "between my toes" plantar wart.
- Remove the wart pads from the kit and peel one off. Put it directly over your (gross) wart and stick it down.
- Cover your Salicylic pad with the provided bandaid. It'll either be a regular oblong bandaid or a round, soft pad bandaid.
- Replace the pad and bandaid every 2 days until your skin has died and comes off naturally. You may need to pull the skin a bit, pulling the root of the plantar wart with it! Gross. Yet weirdly satisfying.
Don't try to just hack away at your plantar wart with a pumice stone, it won't get rid of it. You have to treat it, and a kit cure actually works to remove plantar warts. Which was shocking to me, I don't mind telling you.
Don't be alarmed if your wart fell off and left a hole. That's what's supposed to happen.
Pulling out root with tweezers
After treatment if the wart doesn't come out with you can now proceed with a set of tweezers. The wart pad will have deadened the wart root, so you'll be able to easily pull it out with a set of tweezers. For really precision tweezing, buy tick remover tweezers!
What causes plantar warts
- Plantar warts are actually from a viral infection. They develop when cuts or cracks on the bottom of your feet come into contact with human papillomavirus (HPV.) The virus enters your body through the cut or crack.
- There are more than 100 strains of HPV with only a few of them causing plantar warts on your feet. Other types of the virus will only cause warts on the hands, mouth or ... private parts.
- You're more prone to a warts if you have a weakened immune system.
Identifying a plantar wart
- You can identify a plantar wart aka verruca by the tiny circle like a pinhead with a minuscule black dot in the centre. It isn't the wart that causes pain, it's the callous that builds up around it.
- The typical signs and symptoms are pain at the area of a circle like hard callous and of course what makes them unique is that they grow inward so you won't see the typical raised bump typical of other warts.
The Salicylic acid pad placed over the ... let's call it a beauty mark from now on ... I just feel better about it that way.
I used this Dr. Scholl's kit and the bandaids are perfectly clear, great for wrapping around a toe. Probably not so great for the bottom of your foot. This kit would be better for that.
There's also a LOT of talk on the Internet about people wrapping their feet in duct tape to get rid of plantar warts. I decided I wasn't so poor that I had to Red Green my way out of a wart. I could spend the $10 on medicine.
Alternative methods
A 2010 scientific study on plantar wart treatment proved that they are equally likely to disappear within 13 weeks using any of these 3 methods:
- Salicylic acid (like you see me using here)
- Cryotherapy (liquid nitrogen)
- Ignoring it
That's right. Warts, but only a plantar wart specifically, is as likely to go be gone in 13 weeks whether you use an acid patch, liquid nitrogen or do nothing at all.
Also, as far as alternative methods go, these are great substitutes for shaving cream if you ever run out.
You just stick the bandaid down and then pull away the wrapping.
You can't see it at all. NO one will know you're treating ..... a beauty mark.
Results
After a few days your skin turns white and eventually just pulls away with your body, the root of the plantar wart attached. You're welcome for not including that photo.
What you're left with is a small hole where the dead skin has pulled out, and some pinkish skin underneath. It all fills in by itself within a few days in that magical way skin works.
Because it regenerates itself when we cut ourselves wide open, we forgive skin for also drying, sagging, wrinkling and flapping.
Both cryotherapy (liquid nitrogen) and Salicylic acid work within a week. If you're more comfortable with having a doctor keep an eye on it, go the cryotherapy route. NOTE: Your plantar wart may require a few treatments to get rid of it for good.
Oh yes you sure can. Especially in warm humid areas like swimming pools or change rooms with showers because the HPV virus that causes plantar warts THRIVES in those conditions.
Not really no. If it's hurting you then, yes by all means have it removed or remove it yourself. It may come back the same way a dandelion does if you don't get the whole root.
If it isn't causing discomfort you can leave it and within a year or two the wart will have run its course and disappear forever.
All went well and my plantar wart was gone, until a few weeks later it seemed to come back. I couldn't really see it but it felt the same as it did when I thought I had that elite runner's injury. So I put another pad on it and started the treatment over again just in case.
THIS time I got no root, and just ended up with a raw toe which probably had thin, sensitive skin after being killed off just a few weeks earlier. I may have jumped the gun on retreating.
So just be careful of that.
Do I recommend these wart treatments? Yes.
Update: It's several years later and there has been no recurrence of the beauty mark.
If you're a fan of hot dogs I have an instant heartburn cure for you and an immediately way to stop the burning if you get hot sauce in your eye. All tried and tested by me in between my relentless fitness regime.
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judy
boy oh boy-on the subject of the reality of being an organism with weird adventures in bothersome yuckies. May I provide a heads up re: BMs'. I spent from 8 am till 3 pm in the bathroom trying to give birth to something stuck in my poop chute. Old and now with heart problems I decided that dying on a toilet was more embarrassing than the ER. Evidently bowel impactions rate at the bottom-of emergencies-so at 6:00 pm I finally told the receptionist that if I couldn't be seen I needed to go home. 20 minutes-exam room-30 minutes later nurse physician who proceeded to drive a truck up my (by this time very sore butt). 15 minutes of pain and she had the plug out and and I found that I was (as some have opined through the years) full of sh*t. It seems that I ignore the need to go and that is very very ill advised. Drink water,eat fruit and go as soon as Mr. Butt runs up the poop flag. I would take just about anything over this nasty experience.
Karen
Yes. Pooping is important, lol. Not something to be ignored. ~ karen!
Ei Con
That looks like a corn to me rather than a plantar wart. My mom used to get them back in the 60s from wearing those pointy toe pumps. As I was #1 daughter, my job was to apply some sort if liquid solution, apply the little cushion with the hole it and check it daily. I thought plantar warts only were on the soles of the feet.
Jody
Wow, I just readt\ hrough the comments. Who knew there were so many DYI treatments for so many afflictions. Interesting stuff like Listerine, Lysol, tea tree oil, vinegar.........but my favourite was nail clippers on skin tags!
Carla
If your wart comes back, go to the doctor and get a treatment of Cantharone Plus. Doesn’t hurt and works great. We tried the home remedy stuff on my daughter with no luck. 3 treatments of this stuff and gone.
Tom
How about age spot removal?
Susan
Science shows duct tape really works!
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/duct-tape-and-wart-removal/
Gayle M
That might have been a corn between your toes if you didn't get a root. I got one there once myself. From medicinenet.com:
Corns: Corns generally occur on the tops and sides of the toes. A hard corn is a small patch of thickened, dead skin with a packed center. A soft corn has a much thinner surface and usually occurs between the 4th and 5th toes. A seed corn is a tiny, discrete callous that can be very tender if it's on a weight-bearing part of the foot
Marie
I was just about to say the same thing. Also, being a runner, I too thought it was a running injury (amazing how painful that little bugger is) but my podiatrist told me it was a corn. He cut it out with a scalpel.
Laura Bee
My daughter had one named Morty the Warty. Her dad used the kit to remove it. I got to deal with lice a few times. They were named Bitey and Jones.
Kids are gross but they are fun.
Suzanne LH
What young looking feet you have. When I rode everyday for years, I got plantar warts. Dozens of them. My old school Dr told me to use the same cure. It worked. He also told me to spray the inside of all my closed shoes with Lysol. Especially rubber boots & sneakers. The spores live forever otherwise, and the warts will come back. Glad your treatment was a success.
Karen
You got plantar warts from horseback riding? I rode for years and that's one injury never encountered, lol. ~ karen!
Marjorie Kramer
I get plantar warts all the time, so, I'm really much more gross than Karen is. I will try the Lysol on my shoes, maybe that's why they keep coming back. Duh...
Bonnie Harris
"secretly Google for answers while you’re changing back into your clothes." Oh Karen, you're so funny and so right. I've long suspected that myself. Here's what I know about our beauty marks...
For every fact you read about plantar warts, there is an opposite one. For every person who swears by a remedy, there's another person with a different one. Some disappear on their own fairly quickly, some last 50 years. Some painful removal operations work for some people, not for others. They're quirky and volatile and doctors don't really understand them. I say start with the 'cure' that causes the least pain (and cross your fingers).
Peggy
A few years ago I had something that looked like what you’re calling a plantar wart. ( or beauty mark). It was actually a little bit of bone growing on the side of my toe bone. The podiatrist made a tiny incision in my toe and stuck a tool that looked a lot like a dremel in the incision and ground off the extra bone material. I watched the whole thing! Local anesthesia wore off and I was good as new. What I thought was a wart was the callus built up over the bone.
Carol
How nice to hear that tea tree oil works on plantar warts AND toe fungus, as I am dealing with the latter. A bit of plantar wart trivia. I had one on my heel as a teenager. Not knowing what it was, I picked at it with tweezers, pulling out individual roots. Yuck, I know! Eventually it became infected and I was unable to put my heel down - had to wear a slipper to my bank teller job that day. When the thing broke, releasing pus, the wart was GONE! I was later told that a plantar wart is a virus and when my body fought the infection I caused, it killed the virus. Thanks for all the info sharing!
Sue Labrie
Thuja ointment also works for plantar warts, my daughter had several of them from dance class. It is the consistency of Vaseline but it is a natural product, can’t remember what is derived from? I would apply it to the “beauty marks” before she went to bed and she would wear socks to help it soak in and not make a mess, worked great!
Sarah
I had a plantar wart, but thought it was just a callus. So I soaked my feet in warm water with one half cup of vinegar and one half cup of Listerine mouth wash daily. First my feet were smoother than usual because I rubbed with Cetaphil thick lotion in a jar and wore socks in bed. Two weeks later while putting on the socks I felt something like the round bandaids and pulled on the callus. A week later I removed a hard bead of skin. No more pain.
Tina
Ok, this is embarrassing...I had a tag mole on the inside of one of my thighs. Google said to just use any sort of wart remover, paint the stuff on and cover with a bandaid, do that twice the first day and once a day for a week after. So I did. It wasn’t until the evening of the second day I started feeling red hot PAIN! I decided I could live with the tag so took the bandaid off and washed it. It hurt so much, it felt like the hounds of hell were eating my leg! All I could do was lay with an ice bag between my legs! After taking a couple days off work (I couldn’t wear pants), I was finally able to hobble. I strongly suggest you don’t use that for tag moles!
Laura Bee
Apple cider vinegar works for skin tags.
Jan in Waterdown
So how do you treat them and what does it do? Dry them up and they fall off or?? I’ve had my doctor hit them with liquid nitrogen but would prefer a diy.
Laura Bee
I think I just dabbed it with a cotton ball a few times a day. Didn't take too long. Dries up and falls off. Google has other info and techniques.
Joi Lin Olsen
I've taken off my own skin tags with a pair of sterilized nail clippers before. Obviously, this only works with smaller skin tags, and you want sharp nail clippers. But I just dip the clippers in alcohol and then in hydrogen peroxide, and then slide them around the base of the tag and silently go "1, 2, 3..." and then close my eyes and snip!" Yes, it hurts, but no worse than having it frozen. Yes, it bleeds, but only for a second. I put a cotton ball or tissue on it and press until the bleeding stops - usually within a minute. Then I dab it with antibiotic ointment and I'm good to go! Of course, I am not a doctor, and cannot officially recommend anyone else try this method. But to my mind, it sure beats paying someone else a $30+ co-pay (plus travel and time out of my day) to do essentially the same thing!
Gayle M
I have weekly AHA abnd BHA facial treatments in my face routine (I alternate weeks), and just applied both at the same time twice a day. They are very drying if used too often, so it finally fried up and fell off. I would think that might be gentler on your leg. This tag was just under the broe on the outside corener of my eye. Until the tag fell off, it just looked like a patchy dry spot. NOTE this also worked on a "liver spot" that developed on my collar bone, but I actually had to rough the spot up daily with a wash cloth to work off the waxy top layer--took a month but it hasn't come back in a couple years.)
Tina
Thanks! That's good to know!
Kmarie
My friend just showed me dr pimple popper ( look her up on insta or YouTube) apparently people go to sleep after watching her videos to de stress! Those same people probably would have liked the omitted photo 😂🤷♀️Anyway, memories that were terrible - I had the stupid freezing thing done and I can still see the cool frost swirling in the drs office and feel that one of a kind pain ;( I hope it gets better soon for you 😊💫
Alena
People have to de-stress after watching Dr. Pimple Popper? I watch her to de-stress; one of the better series on TLC. I can easily eat while watching her popping the various lipomas or cysts.
I think it's very informative and the only thing that pisses me off when her patients report that they had seen a doctor (if not multiple ones) in the past and the doctor(s) just told them "oh it's just a lipoma, it doesn't do any harm". Yeah, maybe it does not cause any harm, but why should someone live with a lipoma or a cyst the size of a tennis ball? Those doctors should not be allowed to practice.
Martina
Well this article brought back memories...I was in grade six and hadn’t missed a day of school in six years and got a planters wart and had to take 1/2 day off school to go to the hospital, get anesthetized and have the wart dug out...ruined my perfect attendance! Not to mention having a bad reaction to the anesthesia...fun times...lol
Alisa
Apple cider vinegar works fantastically for those.
Debra
In case you don't want to go the salicylic acid route again with the sore leftover skin I wanted to let you know an easier, cheaper, less painful way. My son had an enormous plantar wart on the ball of his foot, so bad he could barely walk. Before I took him to the doctor to get it melonballed out of his foot I tried treating it with my general cure-all, tea tree oil. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try so every day right when he got out of a shower and the skin was still soft I put some tea tree oil on it, straight from the bottle. Kept this up for a week or two (I don't really remember exactly), but it worked like a charm. Even he was surprised. Any other warts in other places? Banana skin. Plus you get to eat the bananas.
Elissa
I just got rid of toe nail fungus using tea tree oil! I was surprised and thrilled 😄
Nicole
Elissa, how long did it take to get rid of the toenail fungus using tea tree oil?
billy sharpstick
What is that nail polish color?
Jan in Waterdown
Black? Just guessin’ 🙄
Karen
Oh Billy. ~ karen!