For especially persistent warts, sometimes you need to call in reinforcements. Doctors have a few last resort wart treatments that are effective but come with unwanted side effects.

Physicians can use lasers on warts that don't respond to other therapies. The downside? This tends to leave scars. Likewise, they can inject the anti-cancer medicine bleomycin into warts, but this can be painful and may result in fingernail loss. Finally, chemical peels for warts require daily at home maintenance (reapplication of the peel solution) and can be uncomfortable.

Of course the best way to get rid of warts is to avoid coming in contact with them in the first place. If you do touch a wart, wash your hands right away, and get in the habit of washing hands and feet that are exposed to shared surfaces, like swimming pools or exercise equipment.

In addition, as we've covered here, many wart removal regimens call for filing the wart's dead skin cells away between treatment applications, so it's important that you always use a disposable emery board to do this. You can re-infect yourself with a used emery board. Never use the same emery board, pumice stone or nail clippers on your healthy skin and nails that you've used on infected skin.