Warts: Causes, prevetion tips and possible ways to treat them

Warts can be ugly and they can be embarrassing. But other than that what do you really know about warts? Do you know if they can be treated at home? Do you know how to treat them? Do you know what causes them and if there are ways to prevent them?

First, there are several types of warts.

The common wart
The common wart usually appear around the fingernails, fingers, back of the hand, around the elbow or knees.

The foot wart
The foot wart is also called the Plantar wart. It usually appears on the soles of the foot. It likes to cluster in groups of warts called mosaic warts and can become as big as the size of a quarter. These types of warts do not stick up as much as the common wart bascially becomes they become flatten by walking on them.

The flat wart
These are smaller and less rougher than the common wart or the foot warts. One can have many of these at one time. When children get these they are very common on the face. On adult men they like to appear around the area of shaving (the beard area). On women they seem to appear more on the legs.

Shaving and skin irritation can cause the flat warts to become irritated quicker.

Genital warts
Genital warts usually occur because of a sexually transmitted disease.

The causes of warts:

Warts are caused by viral infections. These infections occur in the outer layer of our skin. The infection causes the bump or bumps to appear.

Each different type of wart is caused by a different type of infection.

It is unknown exactly why some people becomes infected with warts more easily than others do. It is similar to the common cold. Some people are just more susceptible, especially those who are prone to allergies or who have other health problems. Infections that causes warts are more likely to develop in skin that has all ready been damaged.

The only symptoms of warts are actually seeing them. They are usually rough in the surface and the cause that area of the skin to become discolored.

Warts are sometimes caught from other people, especially when they are first formed. However this risk is very small in the hand, foot or flat warts. The genital warts on the other hand are contagious through sexual partners, especially during a breakout of them.

Generally, warts do not need any treatment and will disappear on their own within months. Sometimes they may disappear in a matter of a couple of months or as long as 18 months.

There are many different treatment methods that people uses to help make the warts disappear faster. Some people trust and believe that these methods work. Others have not found any evidence that they do.

Heat method for plantar (foot) warts. Soaking ones foot in hot water once a week for six weeks.

Putting non-breathable bandages on common warts for up to 12 hours at a time, repeating the process for many weeks.

Topical creams you can buy at most stores.

Treatments that doctors can use at their offices:

Laser therapy and immunotherapy therapy.

There are generally no complications with warts. They are just a sometimes ugly nuisance on the skin we just have to deal with at times, until they run their course.

By: Linda M. McCloud
Published: 02/01/08

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1 Posted Comments:

Fascinating

@ 4:02 pm 02/08/08 by Jacob Malewitz

Very informative article, I guess that's why they call it informative post. You went step by step in dealing with all kinds of warts. The majority of this I didn't know. Thanks for sharing this, Linda.

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