Plantar Wart
Toetal Podiatry
Podiatry & Foot and Ankle Surgery located in Financial District, New York, NY
If walking hurts and your foot soles look thick and rough, it could be a case of plantar warts. Toetal Podiatry makes your diagnosis and offers innovative treatment options in their office in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. Caring podiatrists Yekaterina Grauer, DPM, and Vera Malezhik, DPM, focus on highly personalized treatments that treat the wart virus and stop the pain of plantar warts for good. Call the practice or click on the online appointment tool for help now.
Plantar Wart Q&A
What are plantar warts?
Plantar warts are warts that grow on the bottom of your feet. You can develop plantar warts if your skin has any small cuts or breaks. These openings serve as entry points for the human papillomavirus (HPV).
This kind of wart can be very irritating and painful because it’s on the weight-bearing parts of your foot. As you walk, stand, or run, you’re exerting pressure directly on those warts. This often causes a thick callus to build up over the warts.
How do you develop plantar warts?
If you have plantar warts, you came into contact with the HPV virus. There are well over 100 types of HPV, and just a handful of them cause plantar warts. The virus strains that cause plantar warts flourish in wet and humid areas.
If you don’t wear shoes in an environment where the virus lives, for example a public swimming pool deck, you run the risk of picking up plantar warts as well as other fungal infections like toenail fungus and athlete’s foot.
Chronically sweaty feet can also create a damp environment where plantar warts could grow. Although direct person-to-person contact rarely causes plantar warts, it’s possible.
What does a plantar wart look like?
Plantar warts can appear singly or in groups. They can continue spreading if you don’t get treatment. Common indicators of plantar warts are:
- Flat or slightly bumpy growths with clear boundaries
- Rough or grainy texture
- Black pinpoints, which are tiny burst blood vessels
- Hard skin (callus) over the growth
Sometimes, plantar warts may look like a corn or solitary callus. Treatments for corns and calluses don’t resolve plantar warts, however. To do that, you need to get at the virus, and that means a visit to the friendly team at Toetal Podiatry.
What is the treatment for plantar warts?
The Toetal Podiatry team uses personalized techniques for plantar wart treatment. Your treatment may include:
- Individually formulated topical compounds for your specific needs
- Low-dose microwave therapy with the Swift machine
- Wart debridement and cautery
- Surgical wart excision
Plantar warts can return if you’re not vigilant about aftercare. The Toetal Podiatry specialists monitor you during routine follow-up visits to make sure you don’t experience ongoing issues.
The Toetal Podiatry team can get you out of pain and remove your plantar warts now, so call the office or book an appointment online now.