Wart Treatment Specialist

What is a wart?

Warts are noncancerous (benign) growths that appear on your skin. They often go away on their own without causing any problems. However, some warts can be unsightly or embarrassing, or cause symptoms such as pain and itching.

The team at HK Dermatology specializes in treating several different types of warts, including:

• Common warts that typically appear on the hands
• Flat warts that commonly occur on the face, especially in children
• Plantar warts that grow on the soles of the feet and may be painful
• Filiform warts that often grow on the mouth, eyes, or nose
• Genital warts, also known as condyloma, that grow in the pubic area, and can also be found inside the vagina and anal canal
• Subungual and periungual warts that grow under and around the fingernails and toenails
  
  

Warts appear different depending on where they grow on the body. The typical wart is a raised round or oval growth that can appear light, dark or black (rare) when compared with the surrounding skin. Examples include common warts and plantar warts that look like rough bumps that may have black pinpoints in the center and filiform warts that look like long, thin threads that stick out from the skin.

What causes warts?

Warts may result from a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. People of all ages can get warts, but they’re more common in children and teenagers. Warts also tend to go away more quickly in children than they do in adults.

Warts are contagious and spread from person to person. You can get a wart by touching a wart on another person’s body or even after touching something that came into contact with a wart. Sharing towels is one example of how warts may spread without direct contact.

You may also spread warts from one area of your body to another by picking at the wart. It’s easier to become infected with HPV through a cut or break in your skin, which may explain why they’re so common in children.

How do you treat warts?

You should schedule an appointment at HK Dermatology if you have one or more warts that interfere with your life or don’t go away with treatment.

Your highly trained specialist at HK Dermatology examines your wart and then recommends the best course of treatment. Depending on your particular type of wart, treatment may include:

• Cryotherapy, or freezing the wart
• Electrosurgery, or burning the wart
• Curettage, or scraping off the wart
• Excision, or cutting out the wart
• Applying or injecting medication to kill the wart
  
  

Warts are notoriously difficult to treat. You may need to try more than one treatment before the wart is gone for good. Additionally, there’s no cure for HPV. This means the wart may grow back or appear in a different spot.

To learn more about your options for wart treatment, call HK Dermatology or book an appointment online today.