Duct tape really does fix a lot — even warts
Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008
When my 8-year-old son developed a plantar wart on his foot, I didn’t want to deal with the drama of a trip to the doctor’s office for cryosurgery or the several-month course of treatment that wart remover can prove to be. So I decided to give duct tape a try.
Using duct tape to remove warts is not rocket science. You don’t need high-end duct tape, just whatever type you happen to have around the house. My ex-husband used a different duct tape than I did on our son; his was yellow and lightweight, while I used your standard gray.
In one study of this method, the patients wore the duct tape atop their warts for six days. Then they removed the tape, soaked the area in water and used an emery board or pumice to scrape the wart. The duct tape was reapplied the following morning. This routine went on (for a maximum of two months ) until the wart went away.
We continued this strategy for a couple of months, but with no soaking, no pumice. And although the study used duct tape that only just covered the wart, we used strips of duct tape that went well beyond the edges of the wart.
Yes, the wart came off after somewhere between two and three months. Over-the-counter medication might also have taken that long. But duct-tape therapy is relatively painless, and if it doesn’t work, you can always segue to treatment at the doctor’s office.
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