What are Warts?

By - 2007-11-03

A wart is a virus under the Human Papilloma Virus classification or HPVs. There are more than 100 types of warts of which 30 or more of them can be most often found in the sexual regions.



What are Warts?


A wart is a virus under the Human Papilloma Virus classification or HPVs. There are more than 100 types of warts of which 30 or more of them can be most often found in the sexual regions.

Warts and You.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what a wart is, how it is transferred, and how it can be successfully remedied or treated. First of all let us talk about what is a wart.

Any skin surface of the body is susceptible to forming the cauliflower-like appearance which are essentially small, benign tumors on the skin. Warts are most often transmitted from person-to-person contact. If you touch a wart on someone else it is possible that you can grow a wart as well. If contact is made with broken skin, it increases the likelihood substantially. They are also passable via inanimate objects such as bath towels and other objects that might have come in contact with the wart and allow for it to be passed.



Types of Warts

You have several different types of warts.

The common wart is the one you would most often find on your hands and fingers.

You then have plantar warts or foot warts which can be found on the soles of the feet, normally under the surface of the skin. Depending on where they are located, these can have a debilitating impact on a person's ability to walk.

Flat warts are flat on their surface and often grouped in large numbers. They can be found on the legs, of adult females mostly, or the faces of small children.

Genitial warts are one of the most common sexually-transmitted diseases (STD) out there, and treated differently, for the most part, than the other classifications of warts.



Treating Warts

Some warts will eventually go away on their own, although doctors do not seem to know why this happens. It may take months or years, but some warts simply disappear one day never to be seen again. Others require treatment to deal with them and make go away. Even if a wart is not causing you physical pain or discomfort, it is a good idea to look at treating them. Just having the warts can allow them to spread and infect other parts of your body as well as infect other people.

Some of the ways common warts are dealt with.

Genital warts should not be treated with any of these methods. They could cause you serious harm and damage. Please reserve them to warts on your feet, hands, legs and other non-genital regions. If you want to treat genital warts, your best bet is to consult with your doctor.

Probably the most common solution in treating warts is to use salicylic acid.

This is available in most grocery stores and drug stores and is the active ingredient in products such as Compound-W and others. It requires a daily application that eventually eats through the wart. My experience differs a bit from the common directions though, and that is I found it more effective to just apply the salicylic acid, and try to leave it on without disturbing it, until you go to apply it the next day. Many products recommend you try to remove the dead skin, before reapplying. I found that extended the time for the warts to disappear.

Another suggested method is to use duct tape.

Supposedly you can cover the wart in duct tape which causes a reaction with your body that attacks the wart. My personal experience is this method does nothing or very little in getting rid of warts.

As a last ditch effort or for a very large or painful wart, your family doctor has several tools of the trade to also use on warts. From chemical applications to using liquid nitrogen to freeze them off, they could be a consideration if nothing else is working for you.

Warts are very common and most people will experience them at some point in their lifetime. It is not something to be alarmed about, and they are usually treatable. So just take the necessary steps to try and take care of them and you should have no problems.

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