How do people get warts

Curettage, electrosurgery, and laser surgery are more likely than cryotherapy to leave scars, so they are usually reserved for hard-to-remove or recurring warts. If you have a large area of warts, curettage may not be an effective treatment. Cryotherapy , which uses a very cold liquid to freeze a wart, is the most commonly used procedure that doesn't involve medicine to treat warts. This procedure poses little risk of scarring but can be painful.

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Updated visitor guidelines. You are here Home » Warts and Plantar Warts. Top of the page. Condition Overview Is this topic for you? What are warts, and what causes them? How are warts spread? What are the symptoms? How are warts diagnosed?

How are they treated? But if you have warts that are painful or spreading, or if you are bothered by the way they look, your treatment choices include: Using a home treatment such as salicylic acid or duct tape. You can get these without a prescription. Putting a stronger medicine on the wart, or getting a shot of medicine in it.

Freezing the wart cryotherapy. Removing the wart with surgery electrosurgery, curettage, laser surgery. Health Tools Health Tools help you make wise health decisions or take action to improve your health.

Decision Points focus on key medical care decisions that are important to many health problems. Warts: Should I Treat Warts? Cause A wart develops when a human papillomavirus HPV infects the outer layer of skin and causes the skin cells to grow rapidly.

Can common warts on hands or fingers be spread to the genitals and cause genital warts? But common warts don't cause the type of genital warts that lead to high-risk cancers. Symptoms Warts occur in a variety of shapes and sizes. Common warts usually appear singly or in groups on the hands, although they may grow on any part of the body.

They usually are rough, gray-brown, dome-shaped growths. Plantar warts can develop on any part of the foot. As the callus and wart get larger, walking can become painful, much like walking with a pebble in your shoe.

When pressure from standing or walking pushes a plantar wart beneath the skin's surface, a layer of thick, tough skin similar to a callus develops over it. Sometimes dark specks are visible beneath the surface of the wart. Flat warts are usually found on the face, arms, or legs. They are small usually smaller than the eraser on the end of a pencil.

There are usually several in one area. They have flat tops and can be pink, light brown, or light yellow. Flat warts are often spread by shaving. Filiform warts , a kind of flat wart, can grow around the mouth, nose, and beard area. The surface of this type of wart has many flesh-colored, finger-shaped growths. Periungual warts are found under and around the toenails and fingernails. They appear as rough, irregular bumps.

What Happens Human papillomaviruses can live on healthy skin without causing infection. A wart can take many months to grow before it becomes visible. Warts, particularly newer ones, are easily spread. They can spread to other parts of the body or to other people. Plantar warts can be pushed beneath the skin's surface by pressure from standing and walking. A thickening of the skin slowly forms over most of the wart and looks and feels like a callus. Periungual warts can affect nail growth.

It may be hard to get rid of warts after they develop. But they generally go away on their own within months or years. Just before warts disappear on their own, they may turn black. Your age. Warts occur most often in children and young adults. As you get older, you may find that you get fewer warts or that your warts go away. Walking barefoot on moist surfaces, as in public showers and locker rooms and around swimming pool areas.

Sharing towels, razors, and other personal items with a person who has warts. Biting your nails or cuticles. Wearing closed or tight shoes that cause sweaty feet. When To Call See your doctor if: You aren't sure if a skin growth is a wart.

If you are older than age 60 and have never had warts, consider seeing your family doctor or other health professional to check for skin cancer. Nonprescription home treatment isn't successful after 2 to 3 months. Warts are growing or spreading rapidly despite treatment. Signs of bacterial infection develop, including: Increased pain, swelling, redness, tenderness, or heat.

Red streaks extending from the area. Others are tiny and grow in clusters. The treatment for a wart depends on the type of wart a person has. It's a good idea to have a doctor look at a wart before trying to treat it, especially if it's on the bottom of your foot. For some kinds of warts, the doctor may say you don't need medicines to make them go away. In time, these warts will disappear on their own. Some warts can be hard to get rid of because the thick layers of skin make it hard for medicine to reach the virus that causes them.

There are many ways to treat warts, but treatments can sometimes be tricky. After a wart seems to be removed, it might come right back. With any of the treatments above, the doctor will take steps to prevent you from feeling pain while the wart is being removed. And after it's all over, you can wave goodbye to your wart!

Reviewed by: Larissa Hirsch, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size. What Are Warts? Why Do Kids Get Warts? How Do Warts Look and Feel? Here are some types of warts: Common warts usually grow on fingers, hands, knees, and elbows. AAD Shade Structures provide permanent outdoor shade in areas that are not protected from the sun. When it comes to treating the skin, plenty of people say they have expertise.

Only a board-certified dermatologist has these credentials. Anyone can get warts. Some people are more prone to getting a wart virus HPV than others. These people are:. In children, warts often go away without treatment. Most flat warts are on the face, but they can grow anywhere and can appear in clusters. Plantar warts. Found on the bottom of the foot, plantar warts can be very uncomfortable.

You might feel like you're walking on a small stone. Filiform warts. These have a finger-like shape, are usually flesh-colored, and often grow on or around the mouth, eyes, or nose.

HPV viruses that cause warts can be passed from person to person by close physical contact or from touching something that a person with a wart touches, like a towel, bathmat, or a shower floor. The length of time between when someone is exposed to an HPV virus and a wart appears varies. But warts can grow very slowly and may take many months to develop. With treatment, warts can usually be removed within a few weeks, but they may come back if the virus causing them stays in the skin.

Within a few days after treatment by a doctor, a small wart will usually fall off, although you may need more than one treatment. Treatment may take longer for larger warts. Over-the-counter treatments may take longer than the doctor's office treatments, but can be used as initial treatment on the hands or feet. Your doctor may also tell you to use OTC treatments after you've had an in-office procedure.

You might also have heard that you can use duct tape to remove a wart.