Podiatrists can usually diagnose warts by looking at your skin.
Biopsy can confirm if the wart is not another type of growth, including skin cancer.
Do NOT attempt to remove a wart yourself by burning, cutting, tearing, picking, or any other method.
Over-the-counter medications are available to remove warts. Do NOT use over-the-counter wart medications on your face or genitals. Warts on the face or genitals need to be treated by your doctor or nurse.Apply the medicine to the wart every day for several weeks, if it does not go away seek professional help.
Your health care provider may recommend the following treatments if your warts do not go away:
- Stronger (prescription) medications, such as podophyllin or salicylic acid.
- A blistering solution.
- Freezing the wart (cryotherapy) to remove it.
- Burning the wart (electrocautery) to remove it.
- Laser treatment for difficult to remove warts.
- Immunotherapy, which gives you a shot of a substance that causes an allergic reaction and helps the wart go away.
- Skin medicine called imiquimod.
This article is copied and/or modified from an article on WikipediaŽ - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. Although the vast majority of the WikipediaŽ encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.