Dr. Gellner:You look at your child's hand and see a bump and you know it is a wart. Do you rush to the doctor or can you treat it at home?
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Dr. Gellner:So warts are raised, round, rough surface growths on the skin. They occur most often on the hands and they're not painful unless they're on the bottom of the foot and that's called a plantar wart. They can also hurt if you child keeps picking at them and they get infected. Unlike a callus, a wart has brown dots in it and has a clear boundary with normal skin around it.
Warts are caused by papillomavirus and are harmless actually. Most warts disappear without treatment in two or three years and with treatment they're gone in two to three months. So how can you take care of these unsightly warts?
First it sounds strange but cover the wart with duct tape. I know, doesn't it just seem like duct tape fixes everything? You should:
The tape treatment may be needed for eight weeks. So find some cool duct tape that your child will like wearing.
To get faster results with duct tape, use an over-the-counter wart medicine. The best ones contain 17% salicylic acid.
Warts are contagious but mainly to the child that has the warts. They aren't very contagious to other people.
If your child chews or sucks on the wart, cover the area with duct tape and change it as often as necessary. Encourage your child to give up this habit, because chewing on the warts can cause warts on the lips and or the face. If that happens, your child needs a trip to a dermatologist.
Warts can look ugly but we pretty much all have them at some point in our lives. By knowing how to treat them fast and right away, you can make these ugly bumps go away quickly.
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updated: September 14, 2018originally published: May 13, 2016
