Who says home remedies don’t work? When it comes to warts, even dermatologists sometimes use unorthodox approaches.
For years such doctors have whispered the tricks of their trade. Some have claimed that they could “buy” warts from a child by rubbing a shiny new penny on the wart. Others used a magnifying glass to focus the rays of the sun on the base of the wart. But one of the most interesting involved duct tape.
A reader reported the following advice:
“My 11-year-old daughter has warts on her fingers. I can’t get into a specialist until February. They told me to try the over-the-counter remedy again but this time wrap the finger with duct tape, leave the duct tape on for 24 hours, then use a fine grade sandpaper to scrape the affected area.
“Duct tape sure has a lot of uses if this is how other warts have been treated. There’s got to be a better way than duct tape and sandpaper.”
Well, it turns out that this home remedy actually beats the expensive freezing treatment many dermatologists frequently rely on. A study recently published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (October, 2002) compared duct tape to cryotherapy with liquid nitrogen. The duct tape won!
Researchers divided children into two groups. Half had standard liquid nitrogen therapy to freeze the warts. The other half got a tiny piece of duct tape applied just over the wart for six days. After this time parents were instructed to remove the duct tape, soak the wart in water and then sand it down with an emery board. The duct tape was left off overnight and then reapplied. This procedure was repeated for up to two months or until the wart disappeared.
The treatment was successful in 60 percent of the children treated with cryotherapy and in 85 percent of those treated with duct tape. The investigators speculate that duct tape stimulated the children’s immune system because some untreated warts also disappeared. They conclude that “the use of duct tape appears promising as a safe and nonthreatening treatment modality for children.”
These results are all the more impressive in light of a recent overview of standard wart treatments published in the British Medical Journal (August 31, 2002). The researchers reviewed wart remedies containing salicylic acid (such as Wart Off, Compound W or Clear Away) as well as cryotherapy, lasers, and other expensive high-tech treatments. Salicylic acid was the only approach supported by good data.
There are dozens of home remedies for warts, including a drop of castor oil on the wart, banana peel taped to the wart (white inside applied to skin), vinegar soaks or iodine painted on the wart. It’s not likely most of these will be tested in a scientific study as duct tape was, but many are worth a try, given their lost cost and low likelihood of side effects.
For those who love kitchen table treatments and folk wisdom, especially for warts, we offer our book The People’s Pharmacy Quick and Handy Home Remedies. This book is available at libraries and bookstores or may be purchased directly from our website.
