If warts have a good side, it’s that they often go away on their own after a while. But the question is, where did they come from in the first place?
Warts are viral infections caused by the approximately 70 different strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV. According to Bernard A. Cohen, M.D., associate professor of dermatology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, HPV is everywhere. This may explain why warts affect some nine million Americans every year.
The wart virus spreads from person to person by direct contact. It usually enters the skin through a cut, crack, or scratch, then incubates for 2 to 6 months before developing into the characteristic lump. If you pick or scratch at the lump before touching broken skin elsewhere on your body, you can transfer the virus to the new site. That’s how you get multiple warts.
Warts themselves usually appear as grayish, cauliflower-textured growths. They can be as tiny as a pinhead or considerably larger. They usually erupt on the fingers, though they can show up just about anywhere.
Home remedies for warts abound. There are a couple of reasons for this. Since warts go away by themselves over time, a particular remedy could get credit for what is really nothing more than nature taking its course. Second, and perhaps more important, any remedy can have what experts call a placebo effect.
In other words, if you believe that whatever you’re doing works, it will workeven if there’s no scientific reason that it should. The placebo effect is one of many things that can boost immune function, says Andrew T. Weil, M.D., director of the program in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. And ultimately, it’s your immune system that defeats the wart virus and prevents warts from coming back.
Even without treatment, about onethird of garden-variety warts disappear within 6 months. Some linger for as long as 5 years. For a small and probably frustrated proportion of the population, warts go away and come back repeatedly throughout life.
Of course, even 6 months is a long time to live with a wart. To make yours disappear sooner, try one or more of the following blended-medicine remedies.
Best Choices
Visualization
Will your wart away. The first modern scientific demonstration of the mind’s ability to direct immune system activity toward the elimination of warts took place in 1973 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Owen Surman, M.D., a psychiatrist at the hospital, hypnotized people with warts. He instructed them to try as hard as they could to will the warts out of existence. After five weekly hypnosis sessions, 53 percent of the study participants were wart-free.
You can tap into the healing power of the mind-body connection yourself, through visualization. Try this exercise developed by Gerald N. Epstein, M.D., director of the Academy of Integrated Medicine and Mental Imagery in New York City: Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Envision yourself at the edge of a stream. Picture your warts as some part of your body, such as an arm or a leg. Imagine removing that part, turning it inside out, and washing it thoroughly in the stream. See the part’s waste products as gray strands being carried away by the current. Once the part is clean, envision hanging it in the sun to dry. Picture it healing from the inside out. When the part is dry, reattach it to your body. Notice that your warts are gone. Open your eyes.
Dr. Epstein recommends practicing this exercise for 3 minutes three times a day over the course of 21 days.
