Warts Removal

What is a wart?

Warts are small lumps that reside on the surface of your skin, often manifesting on your fingers, palm, knuckles, palms, and genital area. 

Warts are generally quite firm to the touch as they contain an abundance of a strong protein known as keratin. Keratin is the same protein used to form fingernails. 

Unlike moles, warts do not root and develop much closer to the skin’s upper layer. 

Some warts tend to be more painful than others; like Plantar warts, a wart typically appears on the foot, causing sharp pain in each step. 

It is common and entirely normal for any wart to feel itchy. 

Fortunately, warts are noncancerous lumps. However, they transmit through a virus known as HPV (human papillomavirus).

What does a wart look like?

Warts generally look like lumps protruding from the surface of the skin. They often contain noticeable tiny dots scattered around the lump, known to be blood vessels supplying nutrition and oxygen to the wart. The colour of the wart itself is typically only slightly darker than the skin’s pigmentation.

What causes a wart to form?

Warts manifest through the transmission of a virus known as HPV. This contagious virus typically transmits through sexual activity via skin-to-skin contact. However, they can also be transmitted without any sexual activity through indirect infection via contaminated surfaces. 

Despite being possible to transmit HPV indirectly, it appears less likely. 

What are the most common wart types? 

Some of the most potent warts transmitted through HPV include:

Plantar warts, verruca warts, genital warts, and flat warts.

Verrucae split between verruca vulgaris, a rough and hard lump commonly found at the knees and hands, and verruca plana, a smoother and flat lump. Verruca vulgaris typically develop as a wart on the hands.

Plantar protrusions are small, tough lumps that typically develop as warts on feet, especially in the sole area.

Genital warts are small grainy lumps that usually form in the genital region following sexual transmission.

Filiforms are thin and long lumps that typically develop as warts on faces, typically near the facial features.

How to remove warts?

Above all, our surgeon must run an assessment to diagnose the respective lump in question. Once the surgeon identifies the growth, the wart treatment will follow.

For surgical excision, the surgeon begins by disinfecting the wart and the surrounding area before applying a local anaesthetic to numb out the site. 

After which, the surgeon then makes a direct incision at the base of the lump and uses cryotherapy to kill the verruca completely. 

The procedure is not very invasive, meaning you should not need any form of stitching and are unlikely to have much or any scarring post-recovery. 

Finally, the operating site will be covered with a compression cloth to prevent infection.

For non-surgical treatments, cryotherapy is used to eliminate your warts. Usually applied using a spray gun, liquid nitrogen is administered to your wart, freezing it. After one to two minutes, your affected skin should return from a pale white colour to its normal pigmentation as it thaws out. Your surgeon may repeat this process if the lesion is large enough.

In the next few days, a scab will form. This scab should take one to two weeks to fall off, leaving the treated area looking relatively normal. A full recovery is common after some time. However, some minor scarring or colour loss can appear. Depending on the nature of your wart, more than one cryotherapy treatment may be necessary for the surgeon to remove all visible lesions from your skin.

Recovery after the wart removal surgery (excision)

Surgical wart removal is a very straightforward and non-invasive procedure. Therefore, there is usually no downtime after removal, meaning the patient can return to their standard routine right after their procedure. 

Your wound generally heals within the first fourteen days after verruca removal surgery. After which, expect minor or no scarring left behind. If a blister appears after the procedure, be mindful and prepared if it bursts. 

Please do not touch the fluid that comes out of the blister as it may contain the HPV virus. It would be best to clean the area instantly after the blister ulcers to prevent the wart from metastasising (spreading) to other parts of your body.

Recovery after Cryotherapy

Your doctor will provide advice on how to care for your wound while it is healing and may suggest using vaseline, patting the wound dry if it becomes wet and advising you to refrain from picking the scab, all to reduce the chances of any scarring.