Before exfoliating your wart with pumice, soak your hand in warm water for about 15 minutes to soften the skin up. Be cautious when using pumice on smaller warts not covered by a callous. It may cause an abrasion / cut and draw blood. For smaller, more fleshy hand warts, consider using a small emery board to exfoliate it. People with diabetes or peripheral neuropathy should not exfoliate warts on their hands or feet with pumice because their reduced nerve sensations may lead to tissue damage.
Salicylic acid is an over-the-counter (OTC) wart medication widely available in most pharmacies. Some products also contain dichloroacetic or trichloroacetic acids, which help to burn the wart away. For most hand warts, a 17% salicylic acid solution or a patch at 15% strength will be effective. [4] X Trustworthy Source Mayo Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source Remember that some hand warts disappear due to your body’s immune system and don’t need treatment, so playing the “wait and see” game for a few weeks is often a good idea.
Cryotherapy can be a little bit painful, but usually it’s tolerable. If the pain is severe, stop applying it and see your doctor. Liquid nitrogen can scar healthy light-colored skin or cause dark spots on dark-colored skin, so be careful when applying it. Ice and frozen gel packs are forms of cryotherapy used for musculoskeletal injuries, but don’t use these methods for warts. It’s not effective and it may lead to frost bite.
Use wart pads, instead. Wart pads work like wart creams do. You can apply the medication on the pad by rubbing it onto the wart directly, or you can place a small piece of wart pad over the wart and hold it in place for an hour or so using medical tape or an adhesive bandage. Retinoids are typically used to help slow down the effects of aging, but they can also be used to strip dead skin cells off your face, preventing anything from getting into your pores. This includes warts.
Clean your skin with rubbing alcohol first and then securely attach a small strip of duct over your hand wart. Leave it on for 24 hours before replacing it with a fresh piece — repeat this cycle in 1 week increments for up to 6 weeks if needed. Some people people claim that other nonporous tape, such as electrical tape, works as well on warts but no research confirms this yet. Other unusual items that some people place over their warts to get rid of them include banana peels and potato skin.
Apple cider vinegar may cause mild burning or swelling in the skin around the hand wart initially, but it usually goes away quickly. Another potential downside to using apple cider vinegar is that it smells bad to most people. White vinegar consists of acetic acid also, but it doesn’t seem to have the impact on warts that apple cider vinegar does.
Like the application of apple cider vinegar, using garlic on warts may cause mild burning or swelling in the skin around your hand wart, but it usually fades away. And obviously, it also has a strong odor. As a less-effective alternative, you can take capsules of refined garlic orally (by mouth), which attacks HPV from your bloodstream.
To reduce the risk of skin irritation, try diluting the Thuja oil with some mineral or cod liver oil before applying it. Thuja oil is typically recommended for really stubborn warts that are resistant to other forms of treatments — kind of a last resort herbal remedy. Thuja is also available as homeopathic tablets, which are taken under the tongue a few times per day. The tablets are small and tasteless and have only trace amounts of Thuja extract, but they can be effective and have no known side effects.
Tea tree oil has been used for a few hundred years in Australia and New Zealand, but its only become popular in North America during the last decade or so. Tea tree oil can irritate and trigger allergic skin reactions in some sensitive people, but it’s very rare.
If it’s not a wart on your hand, your family doctor will likely refer you to a skin specialist (dermatologist) for treatment. If it is a regular wart, you doctor will likely use a form of cryotherapy (stronger than the OTC products). The doctor may have to numb the your hand before applying the liquid nitrogen. Cryotherapy, when done by your doctor, should leave no skin scars. Healthy skin grows and fills in the hole left by the destroyed wart.
Research confirms that salicylic acid is more effective when its combined with cryotherapy. [13] X Trustworthy Source Mayo Clinic Educational website from one of the world’s leading hospitals Go to source Prescription salicylic acid products are sometimes given to patients to take home, but there’s a much higher risk of skin irritation and scarring. Cantharidin, on the other hand, is poisonous if swallowed and not typically given to patients for home use.
Pulsed-dye laser treatments have a 95% success rate against all types of warts and they very rarely ever return. Keep in mind that laser therapy for warts and other skin conditions tends to be expensive, so check with your health insurance plan to see if you’re covered. Warts on the hand are not considered a significant medical condition, so you may have to pay out of pocket for treatment.
Surgical wart removal usually leaves a scar, so keep that in mind if you’re a “hand model. " Following electrodesiccation, it’s not unusual for warts to return within the scar tissue at a later time. Cutting into the tissue around a deep wart sometimes causes it to spread to nearby areas, particularly in people who have weak immune systems.
