Body

How to Get Rid of Warts

Give those unsightly bumps the heave-ho with these at-home and professional wart remedies

by Leslie George | COMMENT

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Remove Your Warts Professionally If you have tried and failed to remove your wart at home, or you're just not up for maintaining the persistence and diligence required of at-home wart treatments, your dermatologist has a host of treatments to choose from to remove your wart.

Cryotherapy, or freezing, is one of the most common ways to remove warts in the doctor's office. It can be painful, so in this treatment the doctor will usually apply a numbing agent to your skin and then apply liquid nitrogen to the wart. It takes less than a minute. Most people need two to four treatments with one to two weeks between treatments.

Another option is cantharidin, which involves your doctor painting a special chemical onto the wart and covering it with a bandage. While the application of the chemical tends to be ouch-free, you will experience some pain and blistering of the wart in the hours following. Your doctor will remove the dead wart skin on your next visit. This treatment can work in one dose, or not at all.

Then there's electrosurgery and curettage (aka burning and cutting). This method isn't typically a doctor's first choice because it can cause scarring. A doctor will "burn" your wart off with an electrical charge sent through the tip of a needle. It's often followed by the surgical removal of the wart tissue, or curettage, in which -- and this description isn't for the squeamish -- your doctor uses a scalpel or small, spoon-shaped tool to cut and scrape the wart out.

SEE NEXT PAGE: Last Resort Wart Removal Tactics

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