PLANTAR WARTS

Plantar warts, or Verrucae Pedis, are a painful lesion caused by a virus in the skin known as Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Plantar Warts initiate as a result of transmission of the virus through cuts or breaks within the skin.  Walking bare-footed in areas that are warm, dark and moist such as around public communal showers or pools are a common reason of contracting the virus. Plantar warts are painful and can be very contagious. Plantar warts are often mistaken for corns, which look similar, however the most common indication of a wart are the presence of small black dots which represent the blood vessels within the wart tissue.

A plantar wart is more stubborn and hard to treat than most other warts due to their location on the sole of the foot. The skin on the sole of our feet is some of the thickest skin on our body and is constantly being shed and replaced. Over-the-counter wart treatments have difficulty penetrating the thick skin layers that cover a plantar wart so a visit to a Podiatrist is recommended so they may scrape away the overlying thick skin prior to treatment.

There are many ways your Podiatrist may treat a wart, however the most common methods are cryotherapy, and chemical cautery. Cryotherapy uses a very cold liquid agents such as liquid nitrogen to locally snap freeze the wart tissue thus killing the virus within. Chemical cautery uses strong chemicals to break down the tissue of the wart and kill the virus residing inside the cells. Both of these methods result in a localised trauma event to the affected skin thus alerting of the immune system to address the virus. These treatment methods are usually only minimally painful during the actual treatment and are often painless following the procedure as local nerve-ending are cauterised by the use of cryotherapy or chemical cautery. Treatment of Plantar Warts generally involves at least 6-8 weeks of weekly treatment for full resolution.