Hi, my son has little warts popping up on his hands. He works in a resturant kitchen, in dish water a lot, plus other stuff. Would appreciate any suggestions on natural remedies or other types. He won't take time to go to docs and get the "hot ice" treatment,,,which always works.****Think Spring!!!

-- Patsy, MT (cozyhollow-gal@care2.com), March 18, 2001

Answers

every few years or so,, I get one that comes back,, I just keep cutting it off,, a little at a time to start,, soon you'll get the core. It'll take a few years for it to come back,, and when it does,, just to the same thing,, it'll take longer for it to come back everytime

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), March 19, 2001.

when i ws a kid my mom tried everything on me ,finally somebody told her to use clear nail polish. worked great.

-- greg james (wgjamesii@webtv.net), March 19, 2001.

get some fresh birch bark and moisten it and placeon the warts. I would do this at night and warp it up to keep it there while you sleep. Or you can make a tea with the bark and drink it.

-- michelle (tsjheath@ainop.com), March 19, 2001.

Warts are supposedly a virus, and can sometimes be made worse by picking at them. Castor oil or crushed garlic applied overnite covered with a bandage can work to make them disappear. To keep them at bay, eat more sulphur-containing foods like eggs,garlic/onions,asparagus, citrus, organic liver,

From my own experience, when I was a teenager I had a line of 6 warts on my hand for about a year. My Finnish farmer grandmother told me to cover them in pine pitch, and they were gone in a week.

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.

Know anybody who does Artificial Insemination? You can stick a long Q-tip into the nitrogen and burn these off quite easily, much less expensive than the same exact procedure the dermatologist will do. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 19, 2001.

Patty, heres something he can try-rub a penny over them. Something a teenage boy wouldn't mind and might even remember to do. It won't go away fast, but I tried it for one on my hand. I just rubbed a penny over it several times a day whenever I thought about it. After a few days I decided it wasn't working and stopped. A few days later I looked down and it was gone. It won't hurt to try it.

-- Dian (rhoffman@nctc.com), March 19, 2001.

Earthmama, how do you make pine pitch, we have plenty of pine here, is it the sap? Carol

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), March 19, 2001.

From several different sources I have heard the same cure for warts - rub the inside of a banana peel on it. Would probably have to repeat several times. Sandy

-- Sandy in MN (jpevans_56353@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.

Warts are caused by a virus. There are numerous inexpensive wart removers in any drug store...they all work. God bless.

-- Lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), March 19, 2001.

You have to kill the skin cells that are infected by the virus. The commercial preparations (Compound W) are nothing but asipirin dissolved in a binder, usually a rubber cement of some sort (though I like the idea of using pine pitch for this, personally -- hadn't thought of that). The aspirin (salycylic acid) kills the skin cells after a period of contact. You apply the solution to the wart and cover with a bandage. Be careful not to get the solution on the healthy skin as it will kill that too. After you use it a while, the wart will turn white and rubbery (at least on the surface). You should carefully cut this newly dead skin off and reapply the solution, repeating until the wart is gone.

If you cut simply cut the wart off, it will bleed badly and crust. The "seeds" you see on warts are the capillaries growing up into the wart itself. Cutting into the wart cuts these capillaries, causing bad bleeding, making the wart harder to treat. To permanently remove the wart by physical methods, you have to scoop under the wart (i.e. get the root), removing all infected flesh, otherwise the wart will return. In so doing, I imagine you would run the risk of disturbing infected cells and further spreading the virus. Personally, I don't have the nerve to "scoop" out a wart -- though physicians do it routine.

Prevention is important too. Warts ARE communicable. The virus can be transmitted in open sores. In addition, once you have the virus, you always have the virus and they may come back if your immune system is weakened. The suggestions about garlic, sulfur, etc, are to strengthen the immune system and help it to fight the virus.

-- Michael Nuckols (nuckolsm@wildak.net), March 19, 2001.

Just posted a reply to "Muzzle Warts" on another thread; I don't see why this wouldn't work. Mix equal parts castor oil & baking soda in the palm of your hand & rub it on the warts. The warts on my colt were gone within a week. Good luck. dh in nm

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), March 19, 2001.

Pine pitch is the sap from pine trees.

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.

When you say pine pitch, does it have to be pine? (what kind of pine? We've got lots of white pine and it's very pitchy, the red pine isn't so much so, and we've got jack pine too...) Does Spruce and balsam pitch work as well? Inquiring minds want to know!

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), March 19, 2001.

Haha.........sorry Julie , I know not! It was a million years ago; I think I just found a pine tree in the yard and smeared the sap on the warts for a few days....can't seem to find anything about this anywhere...

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.

You need a fresh leaf from a pig ear plant. Cut the leaf horizonally and apply the leaf as a poultice to the wart 8-12 hours at a time. The wart will soften and fall off. Pig Ear plants can be ordered for $4 from Richters herb catalog. If you're interested e-mial me and I look up their phone number.

-- Tiffani Cappello (cappello@alltel.net), March 20, 2001.

I recently heard a dermatologist explain wart removal on TV. He suggested that the commercial wart removers (or the same ingredients) work best, and here is why. Warts are caused by a virus, that obviously your immune system is ignoring. Placing wart remover on the wart a number of times causes your immune system to investigate the damage being caused to the skin, and to begin to repair it. This in turn causes it to recognize the wart virus in the area, and attack it in that location. It is your immune system that causes it to go away, not the remover. The remover is the catalyst. This is my rather uneducated summary of his medical talk.

I've found that sometimes application of the commercial remover only needs to be done a few times, and within a week or two, VOILA!, it's gone. Also, when using a commercial remover, it helps to keep the medicated area covered with a bandage (plastic) as it keeps it damp, and allows greater penetration of that nasty smelling stuff. Always remove as much of the wart as possible with out hurting oneself, before applying the wart remover. Hope this helps.

-- Rheba (rbeall@etown.net), March 20, 2001.

Try white adhesive tape. My son was treated by a Dr for warts as a child (looked like clear nail polish) covered with white adhesive tape. When he lost the med, he just used the tape (fraid to tell me). It worked just great. Had another Dr tell me the tape kept the air from the warts and they died. That was all we used after that. Good luck. Kitty

-- Kitty (wheate@earthlink.net), March 20, 2001.

With his hands in water all the time, he can't afford any of the caustic ointments that eat the warts away. Nitrogen would be better, but it still burns the wart, so he'd end up with an unhealed area for a while - no good. I've heard of using any milky white sap (milk thistle, fig, euphorbia, rubber tree). Also bathing frequently in salt water (like swimming in the sea, or a salt solution in a basin), or bandaging salt (very slightly dampened) onto the warts. Anything non-damaging (like rubbing with a penny) would be worth a try, even if it just encourages the wart to "just disappear" (which did happen for some of mine).

I hesitate to mention this, but warts can be transmitted sexually ("the most common sexually transmitted disease"), and they are very bad news that way. The papilloma virus can then be transmitted from the woman's vagina to a baby's eyes, and can blind the baby over a period of a few months. Also, the papilloma virus has been implicated in causing cervical cancer in women, often two or three decades after initial infection. So while I don't know quite how to convey the message, you should try to get him to keep his hands where they belong, at least while he has active warts. Maybe just getting him to see the information himself (links below) would be the way to go.

See http://www.aomc.org/ComDiseases/hpv.html and http://familydoctor.org/handouts/209.html . Do a search on Google for "warts" for more information.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 21, 2001.

Hi all, thank you for all the wonderful remedies,,I am printing this out and giving it to my son to read,,he can take his "choice" of remedies,,,,I will let you know how it turns out..you all keep me smiling,,,thanks again,,,

-- Patsy, MT (cozyhollow-gal@care2.com), March 21, 2001.

There are those who believe that the antibodies generated by the "wart virus" are effective against the "virus" that leads to cancer. I only point this out as an alternative to "treating" warts. Mine have always disappeared on their own, although it has taken years in some cases. If they are in an area that is bothersome, I have just used a scalpel to expunge them, a system that may take many "treatments". GL, whatever you decide!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), March 23, 2001.

Hi, I can varify Sandy's suggestion. It works great! I used a bandaid to hold the peel on. It went away in about 1 1/2 weeks. It then returned in a couple months. The second treatment of the banana was about a year ago. Still not back. The bandaid might be a problem in the dish water though. My wart got in the way of the kite handles to my power kite. It HAD to go! Warts and extreme sports don't mix. I wasn't about to give up power kiting. Bye for now. Indiana Gardener

-- Indiana Gardener (greenthumbs777@yahoo.com), March 25, 2001.

Hey guys. The banana thing actually works. I didn't even know I had a wart until I put a piece of banana peel on this weird callous thing on my foot at night and then when I woke up it was almost being eaten by the peel. Crazy! Later dudes!

-- Ninja Turtle (ninja_turtle_21@hotmail.com), May 23, 2001.