We have all heard about warts and verrucas, they are the unsightly areas of hard and deformed skin that appear mostly on the feet and hands.
There are many different types of wart but one of the most common is Planters Wart or Plantar warts, scientifically known as Verruca plantaris and this type is actually a verruca.
Besides being unsightly they can also be uncomfortable and painful especially when they are on the soles of your feet.
You can tell it is a wart because of its appearance and they usually have a small dark center which is the blood supply leading to the area.
So how exactly do you get these warts? The wart is caused by the HPV or human papillomavirus, this is a virus that can survive outside the body for sometime, certainly long enough to find a new host.
The virus likes to live in warm damp places such as public pools and showers.
The virus is commonly introduced into the body when you walk barefoot in these public places.
The HPV virus can get into any cuts or scratches on the sole of your foot, even tiny cuts you may not even be able to see.
Once in the skin it causes the wart.
There are several ways that planters warts can be removed, some are medical procedures whilst others are home remedies, some of which work and some are just old wives tales.
One method many people have tried is the duct tape removal method.
This involves using duct tape to cover the area of the wart or warts, the theory behind this is that the wart is starved of oxygen.
The problem is that this method involves a weekly routine of removing the tape, soaking the wart, removing the dead skin and then reapplying a new strip of tape.
This process can continue for months and may not work at all.
Although this is a cheap home remedy there are no guarantees it will work and it is often difficult to keep the tape on and makes it difficult to bath or shower.
The alternative is to pay for a doctors consultation which can be very expensive and again is nit guaranteed that the warts will not reappear.
With any planters wart removal treatment is to consider the cost, time and effort of the treatment.
You must also consider whether or not the treatment will work or if it does will the warts return again and again.