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The wart clinic is held every Monday afternoon at 4pm. Patients should see one of the GPs first to check that it is a wart suitable for treatment before attending the clinic. Warts and verrucas that are causing problems can be treated at the clinic by cryotherapy, or freezing. Most warts and verrucas will go away of their own accord if left alone, though this can take from 6 months to 2 years. The advantage of doing nothing is that this treatment is entirely painless, without complications and does not involve you spending any time on it. What are warts? Warts and verrucas are caused by a virus which is very common and which we
all come into contact with from time to time. The virus infects our skin cells
and causes them to grow in an abnormal way, usually in the form of a lump on the
skin which is easily recognised. Verrucas are the same as warts except that they
are found on the feet. They tend not to be raised simply because we are walking
on them. Most people get at least one wart or verruca at some time in their
lives. Children and adolescents are more likely to develop warts and verrucas
than adults. What treatment is available? Wart paints are available which must be applied to the surface of the wart daily for 6-8 weeks, and slowly dissolve it away. If using these treatments follow the instructions carefully. Regular use of an emery board or pumice stone may be required. The other common treatment, cryotherapy, involves freezing the wart or
verruca with liquid nitrogen. This can either be sprayed onto the skin or
applied by dabbing the affected area with a cotton bud that has been dipped in
liquid nitrogen. This freezes the wart / verruca solid and helps to destroy it. After the freezing treatment the skin may be a little red and tender for the first few days and sometimes a small blister may form. If the blister is small, it is best left alone; if it is large and painful it may need to be burst. Your doctor or practice nurse will be able to advise you about this. Try to keep the skin clean until it heals. Because there is a lot of pressure on verrucas when you walk or stand on them, they can be painful after treatment. Genital warts require more specialised treatment and should be
discussed with your GP or local Genitourinary Medicine
Clinic. These are
sexually transmitted and some forms of the virus which causes genital warts have
been associated with cervical cancer. As you can imagine, warts have been around for a long time. Warts were well known to the Romans. The Latin word for wart is verruca, which means little hill or eminence. In 25 AD, Celsus suggested burning warts away with ash, though another writer visiting Rome describes a man who went about biting or sucking off verrucas from the feet of sufferers. The Romans also wrote about genital warts. A variety of treatments have been tried, which we would not recommend today. In the sixteenth century, Sir Francis Bacon claims to have cured his warts by rubbing them with pork fat that was subsequently hung in the sun - as the fat melted away, so did his warts. Potatoes, green walnuts, broom straws or the intestines of a black chicken can be used instead of pork fat, but apparently these must be buried and left to rot after the wart has been rubbed. Oliver Cromwell also famously suffered from warts and is reported to have asked to be painted ‘warts and all’ in his portrait. Cromwell seems to have put up with his warts, possibly because of the treatments available in the middle of the seventeenth century - paring with a sharp penknife and the use of corrosives such as brimstone are amongst the ‘cures’ which have been documented. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that it was realised that warts were infectious when physician Joseph Payne reported developing warts on his thumb after scraping those of a young patient. The suggestion that warts were caused by a virus came soon afterwards using volunteers. The concept was not generally accepted until 1950 however, when virus particles were actually seen using the electron microscope.
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Last modified: 29 April, 2005 |