Warts? Try Duct Tape

A study from Cincinnati Children's Hospital shows that common duct tape is significantly more effective in curing common warts than the standard treatment of liquid nitrogen. Most dermatologists treat warts by applying liquid nitrogen until the warts turn white and then a painful blister forms raising the wart to the top of the blister.

In this study, the authors treated half their wart patients by applying liquid nitrogen to each wart for 10 seconds every 2-3 weeks for a maximum of 6 treatments. The other half were treated by applying duct tape directly to the wart for a maximum of two months. The cure rate for the duct tape was 85 percent, while the cure rate for liquid nitrogen was 60 percent. The duct tape, or any other tape, macerates the wart so that blood vessels grow into it, allowing the body's immune system to kill the wart. Children with multiple warts have a much lower cure rate with liquid nitrogen.

When a person has more than four warts, any destructive procedure to get rid of the warts usually fails. After your skin is damaged by cutting, scraping, freezing or burning, the wart virus usually grows back into the healing tissue and the wart returns.

A report in the Journal of Dermatological Treatment describes how applying a cream containing a chemical that causes allergies helps to get rid of warts. Diphencyprone (DPC) acts like poison ivy on the skin. It causes redness, itching and blisters. Applying a cream with DPC to just a few warts caused a reaction in which all the warts turned red, even the ones that did not have the DPC cream and the warts disappeared.

Another treatment is Aldara, a chemical that stimulates the immune system to kill the wart virus. Three times a week you put Aldara cream on the wart and make a lot of punctures through the cream into the wart. Often after three or more weeks of this treatment, the warts turn red and disappear. Check with your doctor.


by Dr. Gabe Mikrkin

Also read: A Closer Look at Wart Removal