Verrucas - Help Needed Please!

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My DS has a verucca on his foot which he has had for many many months now that we cannot get rid of.

It is currently bigger than the end of a pencil and despite trying Bazuka a billion times and several tries with silver nitrate pencils it shows no sign of getting any smaller. My DS is ridiculously woosy and will not let me do anything to it other than apply these treatments (i.e. wont let me file it down properly etc.) and it certainly doesn't seem to have any intention of dying of it's own accord. The chemist told us not to bother with the freezing off over the counter products as they 'never work'. So I have two questions;

1. What else can I try?

1. He has permanantly sweaty feet (genetic thing I think as GP and uncle have the same), could the fact that his foot is constantly 'wet' be encouraging the verucca to keep growing?

Other than chopping off his foot, I don't know what else to do .

Apparently they go in the end.... I have found this to be the case. They seem to last about 5-6 years then they go of their own accord.
My DS 10yrs also has one on his toe....he did have one on the heel of his foot, but has now gone.

Persevere with the treatments....they may help to rid it eventually.

Thanks skifit - not sure if I he can put up with it for 5 years and I am worried about his little brother catching them too.

Prescription strength Compound W. You can purchase it online through BOOTS.

Right, that's on my shopping list now. Thanks new2cm .

I'm trying the electrical tape method on my verucca at the moment - you just stick a bit of tape over it and change it once a week (or sooner if it falls off) and it should be gone in a couple of months, so I'm told. It's early days for mine yet though so I can't tell if it works. Duck tape is supposed to work too - just any waterproof tape that will stay on.

have you tried banana skin?

worked on mine when I was pregnant and being pfb about using nasty chemial stuff.

tape some banana skin over the verruca and leave unitl it goes very brown and skanky.
and then change for more banana skin.

works like the electrical tape method I guess - draws it out, so you can pick bits off.

We did all the above without success. In the end we went to our Doctors who have a high power freezing applicator which did the trick. I was told not to bother with over the counter products.

well Scholl verruca stuff worked in this house. Got it at the supermarket. I found the guidance of the chiropodist institute on the net and it said forget anything without salicylic acid in it. The Scholl gel was about 12% but you have to let it skin over before putting socks etc on.

It's taken about 2 months to shift. Blinking soft play!

(The recommendations also said that the first thing a GP is told to ask is have you tried the salicylic acid?)

But I am not sure if it's OK for small people. The victim in this case was me!

Thank you all for your replies, the problem with sticking stuff is that his feet are constantly too sweaty for things to stick so tape, plasters etc just come off immediately.

I thought the doctors didn't treat them anymore and just tell you to use over counter or wait it out? Perhaps I'll ring them on Monday and see?

Yes worth a try. Our Doctors surgery have a verruca clinic. Good luck.

I did some research when DD had a verucca and concluded that it was best to leave it. I did see the doctor and pharmacist at this time.

If you leave a verucca to run its course, the it will confer immunity. If country tomstop it in its track, the body will not have the chance to make the antibodies against it, and more veruccas will follow.

A verucca may be painful for a few weeks, but once this has passed, having a verucca is fairly cosmetic.

You don't really have to worry about swimming with it either.

Country tomstop??? iPad corrections!

If you try to stop it in its tracks....

Got to love auto correct haven't you!

He has had it for about 8 months or more and it is painful to touch (according to him!), it is hideously ugly but I also don't want him spreading it. Surely after so long he must have developed some antibodies? I am convinced his sweaty feet are helping it thrive.

You HAVE to file when you use Bazooka or similar or you just end up putting the liquid onto old dead skin and not the actual verrucca.

Ok, this is what we did for ds 9 last year who had EIGHT ( !!!!!!!!) of the little feckers in total over both feet and toes.

Every other night he soaked his feet in warm soapy water. Dried them and then filed down the verruccas then covered them with Bazooka.

Next time , file the verruccas , soak feet etc etc.

After a few days you will see black spots - this is the 'root' of the verrucca and means it's dying (hooray! )

Then comes the fun next bit! Get an clean pair of tweezers and 'pick out all the dead bits of skin in the verrucca - you will be amazed at how deep you can go with no pain.

Keep on filing, soaking and using the tweezers.

It took about 3 weeks to get rid of all of ds's and some of them were HUGE.

They were NOT going to get the better of me and I attacked them like a military operation

Actually I prefer not to file them down. My dd and ds have had several and what I do is put bazooka yellow (extra strong) on every night for a week or so. At some point the skin round the verucca starts to peel off. The timing is quite critical but as long as the skin peels freely I peel it away and the majority of the verucca comes away from the skin.
On a few ocasions the whole verucca has come away It does hurt a lot and leaves a massive hole in their foot and bleeds quite a bit. You get what looks like an upside down wart attached to the layer of bazooka and dead skin.
If the whole thing doesn't come out in one go you still get black strands attached to the bazooka which are the innards of the verucca.
It's also important to keep going with the bazooka even if you think it's all gone as often a day or 2 later more black spots appear.
Obviously don't put bazooka on a bleeding wound or any raw skin and give it a while to heal up before doing any more treatments.
You have to make sure the skin is dead and peeling freely though as if you peel live it's very sore.

OK I feel slight sick at reading those last two posts .

Last night we pinned him down (no voluntary action on his behalf!) and filed the bloody thing down. Cue much screaming and kicking like we were some evil death squad. Down to fresh verruca and bazookaed it again. I am going to try valiumredhead approach for a bit as, tbh welshdeb as much as I like your 'go get em attitude', my son would probably kill me if I did that.

I think he has accepted that we will be filing whether he likes it or not otherwise it's down to the docs for some proper pain.

I will keep you up to date as to whether it works!!

Had success with Wartner (liquid nitrogen) you buy off the shelf from the chemist. Must be mean parent & hold spongy thing in place as long as instructed.

i was told to leave dd's veruucas alone. they went after about 6 months. she had 3. left a hole, which healed very quickly.

i made sure she never wore her slippers without socks, and was never bare foot around the house.

Apparently your body can fight a verucca which is an inturned wart, if you let it. If they are causing terrible pain however maybe you would go to the doc.

piratecat he has had it for over 8 months and it's just getting bigger - I put it down to his permanantly wet feet. Also he has contagiosum molluscum which he has had for about a year and where I thought it was clearing up, it seems to suddenly have renewed vigour and is all over the back of his legs - he looks lovely!

I wonder if his immune system can't deal with both at the same time?

i can only say that dd's got bigger and bigger and eventually seemed to detach from the outer part of the circle, then fell away.

Whereabouts on his foot is it?

I did treat them initially with the salyclic acid, but was very aware that i was getting it on fresh ski, however carefully i tried to apply it. They were tiny at this stage. I did 4 applications and dd said her fresh skin felt sore so i stopped.

I tried the banana skin method, and even tho dd hasn't sweaty feet i couldn't keep the plasters on that were holding the skin on.

It may just be that it will reach it's largest point then start to heal.

I spoke to a friend of mine who goes regularly to the chiropodist and they had said, leave them alone.

I have an horrific memory of being about 9 and being taken to have mine frozen off, very painful. It was just one but on the sole of the heel.

We did the filing and foot soaking etc while ds watched telly btw, it reduced the protests

It's on the arch of his foot, so not a lot of pressure on it but it really sticks out - very ugly. It's so big that it is easy not to get the Bazooka on his surrounding skin.

The thing is there are so many contradictory methods of removing I just don't know what to do for the best.

Valium, he was watching telly but he is such a wus that even the thought of us looking at it sends him into panic mode. Takes after his father .

Try the way I suggested, I got rid of all of ds's that way. If it doesn't work , try something else. I think you should give each method a really good go though, not just a couple of days iykwim?

Yes, I agree valium, I am determined to ignore the murderous screams.