Warts - a journey
Part 2- Freezing the warts.
I decided not to mess around and went to my doctor who froze the warts with a canister of liquid nitrogen. It didn’t hurt too much. The warts turned white. I went about my life doing things that have nothing to do with warts. Nothing happened.
Over the course of 3 years, I had the warts frozen every time I went to the doctor, which was about 3 or 4 times. Usually it was for something else, and then, hoping to milk a little more out of the copay, I’d shove my foot in the doctor’s face, “what do you think of these?” and she’d bring out the freezer gun.
Conclusion on this method: freezing of plantar warts doesn’t work. I’ve done some research on other blogs, and they have had similar nonresults with their well-established plantars and freezing. Don’t waste your money, unless the wart is on the softer skin of the finger.
Part 3 - Ongoing battle with paininthearse, over-the-counter stuff and duct tape.
For about 2 years, between freezings, I treated the wart with a barage of over-the-counter remedies, none of which worked. I’ll list them here.
1) Doctor Scholl’s plantar tape things with bandaids. These are little sticky circles of adhesive with salicidic acid on them, which you afix to the wart and then cover with a nice soft round adhesive pad. You are supposed to stick these on and leave them for a few days or longer.The wart gets no oxygen and the skin becomes white and soft. You can then schluff off the wart with a blade or pumice stone.
The problem: Oh, where to begin. Sticky stuff? Doesn’t really stick if you plan on bathing yourself. Since i do bathe regularly, embarassing scenes ensued. Here’s one:
Typhoid Mary visiting friend’s house to meet new baby. Has kicked off flip flops at the door. Somehow, gross wart-bandaid has detached from my foot and is stuck on the carpet. We put baby on a blanket that’s laid on the carpet. When baby is picked up again, she has wart tape stuck to cute blanket with lambs on it. “Ew, what’s this?” exclaims alarmed new mom. “Oh oops. I think that’s my wart bandaging. Sorry. Don’t think I got any on your fresh out infant.”
Another problem: salicidic acid isn’t strong enough on it’s own. And self-schuffing? Only good if you know how to sterilize a blade (and have a deft hand with a blade - not me - see what happens when I attempt this later on). Or if you are mad crazy with a pumice stone. Which is kind of like cutting a carrot with a plastic knife. Doesn’t freaking work
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2) Dr. Scholl’s Freeze Away
This expensive stuff seemed like a good alternative to going to the doctor and paying a $20 copay each time. You buy this stuff and feel like you’ve got the power. The power to freeze. Ooooh yeah. It tells you not to aim it on good skin, puppies, babies, etc. So here I was, freezing my own warts. What’s up now, bitches.
The problem: See previous section of this post. Freezing does nothing. After another $20 (how much this self-freezing stuff costs), I was still warty.
3) Duct tape
Usually I trust my life to this stuff. Amazing, right? I know you all agree. You were there in college when I made that duct tape skirt for the pimps’n hoes party. Really, what were we thinking?
Duct tape can dominate anything. So i wore it on my foot, cutting little squares every morning, until I got really tired of doing this after about a week or two, and gave up. Apparently, this will work on fingers. Feet, however, are a no go unless you have serious patience.
