Verruca

[philmassive]

Anyone got any advice on getting rid of a verruca? I've just seen that DS has got 2 and I've never dealt with one before. Are they hard to get rid of? Should I stop him from going swimming or is that an outdated idea nowadays?

I'm not sure I agree about them not being contagious. DS and I both have one (caught through STBEXH - could be worse!) and I just checked current treatment with the GP. The virus spreads through damp and wet conditions. If you haven't sealed the verucca FULLY you could spread the verucca virus to others. The socks are not expensive and could stop another child getting one so please have some thought for others.

DD has one. She hates it, and we've tried everything but duct tape. That will be next.

They are not highly contagious because adult skin is too tough for the virus to penetrate, which is why kids get them, the skin toughens at puberty.

It can happen but its not a case that if one family member gets one the whole family will get them.

Some patients are just more prone to them due to poor immune systems and soft skin. One of my colleagues had them all her married life and they went when her divorce came through.

I went to a conference where anecdotal evidence of children having them worse when the parents were divorcing was put forward but its not the kind of thing you can really advertise for in a research study "wanted traumatised children who have divorcing parents and verruca".

A lot of the treatments dont work, they only control the excess skin production but actually killing a virus is hard.

The worst case I saw was a little girl who had been born with male and female genatailia and was on steroids as part of her conditon, she was covered in them so we sent her to dermatology to reassure her parents more than anything else.