Probably, many of us were scared by our parents that picking up a toad is dangerous - warts will definitely come out. And some of the especially impressionable children bypassed these amphibians on the tenth road. But it is not a fact that this helped them subsequently avoid the appearance of a wart. We will try to consider the causes of the appearance, as well as the ways of treatment below.
What are warts?
Warts are neoplasms on the skin in the form of papillae or nodules. Most of them are benign in nature, although there are known cases of degeneration of warts into malignant tumors. As a rule, they are dense and dry. According to the structure, they can be single or consist of many nodules, have clear boundaries. Sizes: from the head of a pin to 1-2 cm. Sometimes small warts can merge into islands up to a penny in size.
They do not hurt, except for those that are in places of constant pressure or subjected to other mechanical stress. Warts can form on the body, hands, soles, head, face, genitals. Byin color they are mostly gray-yellow, sometimes they are dark brown.
What are they like?
There are four main types of warts:
- Ordinary (vulgar) usually appear on the hands. They have an uneven, villous surface, with a keratinized top layer. They also include plantar warts. People who sweat heavily are more likely to find them. In places where shoes are pressed, such growths are very painful.
- Flat warts mainly appear in children and young people, which is why they are also called juvenile warts. Above the surface of the skin, they rise only 1-2 mm. Their surface is smooth, color from pink to light brown. Favorite "habitat" - face, hands, shins.
- Completely different from the previous type of warts - genital warts. If ordinary and flat warts are dry, then condylomas are fleshy, icicle-like growths on a stalk. As they grow, they can form growths that look like cauliflower. Very dangerous warts on the genitals. It is they who most often can develop into malignant ones.
- Older people have senile warts. The reasons for their appearance differ from the previous ones - these are not viral growths. They look like keratinized greasy plaques of dark color.
Warts must be distinguished from moles (birthmarks, nevi). The latter may be congenital or acquired. They appear as a result of filling the cells of the epidermis with pigment and turning them into melanocytes. Their danger isthat nevi can become the progenitors of melanoma, one of the most dangerous types of cancer. This can happen due to the simplest things: frequent rubbing, injury or abuse of ultraviolet light.
Why warts appear
Of course, the toads and frogs mentioned above have nothing to do with the appearance of a wart. The causes of these skin defects are infection with the human papillomatosis virus (HPV). This does not apply to senile warts. The virus that causes warts has more than 110 varieties. It lives only in the skin and mucous membranes, without infecting the blood and other organs.
How do warts develop? The causes of HPV are concentrated in the lowest layer of the skin. As you know, the cells of the epidermis, as they mature, move from the bottom of the skin up, where the exfoliation of dead cells occurs. Together with them, the papillomavirus also moves. Reaching the surface, it provokes the formation of infectious warts.
Factors contributing to infection
You can become infected with HPV through direct contact with the affected areas of the skin and mucous membranes of the virus carrier. And also using his nail scissors, nail file, and other hygiene items.
The virus has two stages: active and inactive. In the latter, he can stay for years, and a person does not even realize that such a dangerous "roommate" lives inside his skin. When the immune system fails, the virus begins to multiply actively and crawls out. If a person has warts, the reasons for this may lie in a decrease in immunity.
Also dangerous in relation to infection with HPV damage to the skin. That is, contact with a person who has warts does not always lead to illness. Infection occurs when a combination of three factors is the active phase of the development of the virus, a decrease in immunity in the contact and a violation of his skin.
Variants of virus behavior
Papillomavirus is quite unpredictable. Sometimes warts disappear without treatment on their own within a few months or years. More often this happens in children. Warts are a rather interesting phenomenon, they may not develop according to the classical pattern. If other ailments without treatment "gain momentum", and with proper treatment the patient recovers, then with warts it is impossible to say with certainty how they will behave in this or that case.
It happens that a remedy for a wart does not bring relief, and the number of growths not only does not decrease, but also increases. But even if the drugs helped, and you got rid of the warts, then no one guarantees that after a while you will not encounter the same problem again. Statistics claim that relapses occur in a third of those infected with papillomavirus.
Warts: what to do?
Despite the harmfulness of HPV, it is not recommended to self-medicate. In the wells of traditional medicine, you can find literally a thousand and one remedies for warts.
This is the use of medicinal herbs, and burning out growths with acids, and evaporating them, and semi-shamanic remedies when you need to anointwart with something, and then bury this piece so that it rots.
As a result of all these actions, warts can come off. But no one can say with accuracy whether the folk remedy helped, or whether the human immune system worked.
In any case, you need to see a doctor. It is the dermatologist who can determine with a 100% guarantee whether the wart has developed into a malignant formation, prescribe effective remedies for removing the wart, or determine which method is best to get rid of it.
Topical treatment
Acid solutions are used for it. The most common medium is a viscous substance called paint. It contains salicylic and lactic acids. Sometimes more aggressive substances are used: trichloroacetic, nitric, carbolic, cantharidic acids.
This treatment method is characterized by duration. Warts should be constantly treated with prescribed remedies for several days in a row. But one of the advantages of topical treatment is that it rarely leaves scars on the skin as a result.
But with the surgical removal of warts, the formation of a scar, albeit insignificant, cannot be avoided. Excision is used when large areas of the skin are affected. The wart is scraped out with a special scalpel and the wound is sewn up. But at the same time, there is a risk of re-infection through the blood.
Topical treatment usually includes immunomodulatory drugs. After all, it is precisely the excellent state of immunity that is the keyquick recovery and a factor in preventing recurrence of the disease.
Burn out with cold or electric current
There are methods to remove warts with electric current or cold. The first is called electrocoagulation. This procedure is carried out quickly and efficiently, under local anesthesia. The patient practically does not feel anything, while using a high-frequency electric current, the doctor cauterizes the tissues affected by the virus. As a result of the procedure, the pathogen dies, and the wart is destroyed. But the fact that she was, can be reminded of small scars.
Destructive for the virus is the impact of extreme cold. This is the basis of the cryodestruction method. The growths are treated with dry ice or liquid nitrogen. The patient will have to come to terms with the fact that the procedure is painful. And the bubble that appeared as a result of a cold burn will go away from seven to ten days. But instead of a scar, where the wart once "sat", there will be only a pinkish spot.
Laser wart removal
A new trend in the difficult fight against warts is the use of a laser. This method has positive reviews. Warts are removed almost without a trace and painlessly in 1-2 minutes, under local anesthesia.
Due to the use of the most modern technologies, the precise effect of the laser beam on the required area and depth, depending on the damage, is achieved.
The laser "evaporates" the wart in layers, while the skin around the neoplasm does not suffer. In its place is a smalldeepening. Two weeks after the laser removal of the wart, the skin takes on a he althy look.
When exposed to a laser beam, the lower layers of the epidermis do not overheat. This means that the risk of getting a change in skin pigmentation, burns or scars at the site of intervention is minimized. The epidermis heals quickly due to the fact that the laser gives an impetus to the regenerative processes in the skin, and kills bacteria, which prevents inflammation.
Radio wave knife
The latest development in the field of removing neoplasms, not only warts of all types, but also papillomas, and moles, and others, is a radio wave knife.
As with a laser beam, only damaged tissues fall under the knife blade, and the destructive effect on underlying cells is minimal.
Therefore, exposure to a radio wave knife causes little or no pain to the patient. Radio waves act on the root of the wart, which significantly reduces the risk of its recurrence.
If you have warts, it's up to you to decide what to do with them. But even if you are not determined to get rid of them by radical methods, you still need to make sure that they do not carry the danger of degeneration into oncology. Not without reason, with almost all methods of removing growths, their tissue is sent for histological examination. As always, the principle works: it is better to prevent a disease than to treat it later.
