Lifestyle and home remedies - Warts - Lifestyle and Self Care

Unless you have an impaired immune system or diabetes, try a self-care approach to treating common warts:

Salicylic acid. Wart medications and patches are available at drugstores. You can use them to treat warts at home. For common warts, look for a solution or patch containing 17 percent salicylic acid (Compound W, Occlusal-HP), which peels off the infected skin. These products require daily use, often for a few weeks. For best results, soak your wart in warm water for 15 to 20 minutes before applying a solution or patch, and file away any dead skin with a nail file or pumice stone between treatments. Just be careful. The acid in these products can irritate or damage healthy skin around the wart. If you're pregnant, talk with your doctor before using an acid solution. Stronger salicylic acid preparations are available with a prescription. Your doctor may instruct you to use salicylic acid after freezing or other therapies.

Duct tape. A study in 2002 reported findings that showed that duct tape wiped out more warts than cryotherapy did. The "duct tape therapy" used in this study included covering warts with duct tape for six days, then soaking the warts in warm water and rubbing them with an emery board or pumice stone. The process was repeated for as long as two months. Although researchers hypothesized that this unconventional therapy worked by irritating the wart and triggering the body's immune system to attack, more recent research has not found duct tape to be significantly effective for treating warts. Still, the low cost and convenience of this treatment may make it worth trying, especially in children who find cryotherapy to be painful and frightening. Ask your doctor before beginning this kind of treatment.