The board-certified dermatologists and skin specialists at Pima Dermatology understand that a wart can cause you to be self-conscious or even uncomfortable about your appearance. But we have a range of effective treatments that can treat unsightly warts and restore your clear, smooth complexion.
Options for Treating Warts
Warts often just vanish on their own, although it could take several years. However, if you’re understandably not willing to wait and see if that happens, there are several effective methods that can eradicate them more quickly.
At-home treatments include topical medications like salicylic acid (Duofilm) and Aldara cream.
For stubborn, more widespread, or more severe cases, Pima Dermatology offers various types of wart treatments:
- Cantharidin – a treatment that is often repeated over several weeks, it causes a blister to develop under the wart.
- Cryotherapy – a liquid nitrogen therapy that freezes the wart and usually entails repeat treatments every two weeks.
- Surgical Removal – the growth is surgically excised for immediate removal
What Is a Wart?
A wart is a harmless skin growth, often rough to the touch and/or characterized by tiny blood vessel clots that look like minuscule black dots. Despite not being a risk to your health, they are contagious and can be passed indirectly from person-to-person as a result of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and are often a source of social embarrassment.
They can grow as a single skin growth or in a cluster and are characterized by rough, enlarged skin lesions that can become sore, infected, or bloody.
In addition to the common wart, which is typically a brown or gray growth with a round top that commonly grows on areas like the toes or fingers, there are other types of warts to be aware of:
- Plantar – these hardened warts grow into your skin, as opposed to growing out from it, usually on the bottoms of your feet, which makes it difficult and painful to get around
- Flat – small, flat, pink, yellow, or brownish warts that typically grow in large numbers on your face, arms, or thighs
- Filiform – small, flesh-colored warts that form on or around your mouth, chin, nose, or neck
- Periungual – painful warts that develop under or around your nails, which can inhibit nail growth
- Water warts (Molluscum)
- Genital warts
Warts develop when the HPV attacks your skin cells through a tiny scratch or cut in your skin, which causes the skin flaps to grow rapidly. In addition to skin-on-skin contact, warts can spread indirectly, such as through clothing or a towel that has also come in contact with a wart. They can even be spread across your body from your own touch once you have a wart.
Benefits of Wart Treatment at Pima Dermatology
At Pima Dermatology, our goal in treating your warts is either to destroy the growths or to protect your skin from HPV. Before we begin any treatment, we will listen to your concerns and discuss your options. We’ll then develop a treatment plan that suits your needs and meets your aesthetic goals. Your treatment will be customized for your particular case.
Schedule a Consultation at Pima Dermatology
The skin experts at Pima Dermatology have the knowledge and experience to treat your warts to restore your clear, smooth skin. To find out more, schedule a consultation with us by contacting us online or calling our office today.
Next, read about actinic keratosis.