Plantar Wart Laser Treatment

Laser Surgery, A Strong Treatment Option To Get Rid of Those Pesky, Painful Warts On Your Feet

When you find your first wart, it seems like a small problem that is easy to ignore. It’s ugly, but you hope it will just go away by itself.
The reality is that warts can quickly become much more bothersome than you first imagined.
Warts can spread. They can become bigger — at an alarming rate.

And as warts expand and grow, they can be extremely painful. Depending on where your wart is located, you may have a hard time going about your day to day activities. Warts on the bottom of your feet (plantar warts) can make playing sports (or even walking) uncomfortable or painful. If you have a wart, or a small cluster of warts, it is important to address the problem before it has a chance to spread.

Plantar Warts

Plantar warts are noncancerous skin growths on the soles of your feet caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), which enters your body through tiny cuts in the skin. Plantar warts develop beneath the foot pressure points in the heels or balls of your feet. While most plantar warts aren't a serious health concern, they may be bothersome or painful.

Symptoms & Causes of Plantar Warts

Plantar warts can be mistaken for corns or callouses. To distinguish, look for:

  • Small, fleshy, grainy bumps on the soles of your feet
  • Hard, flat growths with a rough surface and well-defined boundaries
  • Gray or brown lumps with one or more black pinpoints - are small, clotted blood vessels, not "wart seeds"
  • Bumps that interrupt the normal lines and ridges in the skin of your feet.

Warts occur through direct contact with the human papillomavirus (HPV), of which there are more than 100 types. Some types of HPV cause warts on your feet. The virus that causes plantar warts thrives in warm, moist environments, such as shower floors, locker rooms and public swimming areas. It is often contracted by walking barefoot in public places. It may also pass from person to person. If you have a plantar wart, you can even spread the virus to other places on your own foot by touching or scratching. The virus can also spread by contact with skin shed from a wart.

Everyone's immune system responds to warts differently, so not everyone who comes in contact with HPV develops warts. Plantar warts are more likely to appear on the feet of people with:

  • Multiple exposures to the virus
  • Damaged or cut skin
  • Sweaty skin

Andrew Klayman B.Sc., D.P.M. says that some patients are more susceptible to the wart-causing virus, as some people are more likely to catch a cold. Children and teenagers tend to be especially vulnerable to plantar warts.

Make an Appointment for a Consultation with Andrew Klayman D.P.M. to Treat Your Plantar Warts.

Treatments For Plantar Warts

There many treatments for warts in recent years, ranging from medical options from Liquid Nitrogen  and prescription topcials , to at-home or over-the-counter remedies. 

Getting rid of most types of warts is extremely difficult, especially with warts that penetrate deep below the surface of your skin, like the plantar wart.

Treatment option for these warts would typically involve repeated painful freezing procedures and scraping and digging at your skin. You would often have to be subjected to this awful procedure every week until the wart was gone, which could sometimes take months to years.

A Treatment Option For Eliminating Stubborn Plantar Warts -Laser Surgery

The times have changed, and we now have much stronger treatment options available to us. Lasers are now being used to treat all kinds of problems, and warts are one of them. 

One type of laser is perfectly suited for this job of treating a Stubborn Plantar Wart: the Nd:YAG 1064nm. This type of laser uses a wavelength that has the capability of deeply penetrating below the surface of your skin, ignoring the melanin there (the skin pigment that would otherwise build up heat on the surface of the skin instead of allowing it to penetrate). A Nd:YAG 1064nm laser is able to target the blood vessels beneath the surface of your skin and heat them in such a way as to effectively cook the wart virus dead and simultaneously cut off the blood supply to your wart.

Unlike most laser treatments, the Nd:YAG 1064nm laser has just the right wavelength and design to create the perfect laser beam that targets your warts and the blood supply beneath them without burning your skin.

Other lasers just aren’t able to heat the blood supply long enough, precisely enough, or with enough power to achieve real results.

 

 

The most common method of removing warts from the feet in previous years involved freezing the skin around the warts, and then scraping away at your wart for a good 10 to 20 minutes with a scalpel. Both the freezing and the scraping were very painful, even if the freezing partially numbed the surrounding skin. And the results were minimal. You might have to come back for 10 to 15 more visits before your plantar wart was actually gone.

Laser wart-removal treatment typically need to be performed generally once or twice, so you won’t have to go through the pain and discomfort again and again for months, but outcomes do vary, andf some warts can be more resitiant.

When you have a wart that will not go away on its own, like a painful plantar wart on the bottom of your foot, you really need to have it looked at by a Podiatrist. 

Andrew Klayman's Wart Prevention Recommendations:

  • Avoid direct contact with warts. This includes your own warts
  • Keep your feet clean and dry. Change your shoes and socks daily
  • Don't go barefoot in public areas. Wear shoes or sandals in public pools and locker rooms
  • Don't pick at warts. Picking may spread the virus

CONTACT ANDREW KLAYMAN'S PODIATRIST OFFICE TODAY TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PLANTAR WARTS AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO MANAGE THEM..

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PLEASE CALL US AT 416-928-3338 TO SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION