Warts

Dr. Leo Krawetz of Healthy Feet Podiatry in Tampa and Brooksville Florida discusses Warts on your feet.

Hi, I’m Dr. Leo Krawetz of Healthy Feet Podiatry.
Many people suffer from warts on the bottom of their foot. This is why they are called plantar warts. Plantar just means the bottom of the foot. In many cases, the wart occurs either on the ball of the foot or on the heel, usually in a weightbearing surface. A wart is a collection of viral particles that forms in the skin and only in the skin. This can be extremely painful because a callus will form over the wart and it will feel like a stone is embedded into the foot. Now, this can be treated either surgically or conservatively. Conservatively, I apply a chemical to the bottom of the foot and have them basically keep the foot covered with duct tape in the area where the wart occurs 24 hours a day. Many times, it does not work, so the wart needs to be removed surgically. In that case, I inject a local anesthetic into the area, which is relatively painless and then I cut the wart and a portion of the skin around the wart out. This is relatively painless, although it does take 4 or 5 weeks for this to heal in. If you would like to have me treat your foot or you think you may have a wart on the bottom of the foot, please contact me by visiting my website at https://healthyfeetpodiatry.com.

A: A wart is a group of viral particles that live on the skin in the bottom of the foot with many black dots in the center of the surrounding and overlying callus. A wart looks like a callus at the bottom of the foot and sometimes has black dots in the middle of the callus. The black dots are tiny blood clots.

A: Yes they are definitely contagious because a wart is a virus that can live on the ground for up to 10 days and infect another person.

A: Apply a wart medicine with 18% salicylic acid to the wart and keep it covered with duct tape, remove the duct tape twice a day to apply more wart medicine until the wart falls off which could take up to 6 months.

A: 18% salicylic acid and cover with duct tape but most of the time a wart will need to be cut out at a podiatrist office. The best treatment for a plantars wart can also be to apply a strong acid that is only available by a medical provider and covering the area for a day after the acid is applied.

A: Freezing a wart usually works for children under 7 years old because they have thin skin.

A: Yes the recurrence rate is usually as high as 50% regardless of how the wart is removed, burned, and frozen off.

5 Convenient Locations

Accessibility Toolbar