1. Most Common Types of Wart
A wart is a type of benign skin growth caused by a viral infection in the epidermis (the top layer of the skin). Because warts feed off the underlying blood vessels, if you can damage them or kill them, the wart will die and eventually fall off, usually without even leaving a scar. There are three different kinds of warts. Plantar (foot) warts, common warts and flat warts. Common warts grow on the fingers and hands, planter warts grow on the feet, usually on the soles. Sometimes they can grow in small clusters, in this case they are known as mosaic warts. Plantar warts can be painful and often give the sensation of walking with a small stone in the shoe. Flat warts are tiny and tend to grow in clusters of 1 to 200 at one time. They can occur anywhere, though in children, they are most common on the face, in women, on the legs, and men, in the beard area.
2. Cryosurgery for Warts
There are a number of ways of curing warts, one of them is by freezing (cryosurgery). This is a painless way of removing a wart without causing any damage to the skin around it. The process is quick, has only two steps and can be done by a doctor or at home with a product such as Freeze Away or Freeze Off. There is usually little discomfort during the freezing process. It feels rather like having an ice cube stuck to your skin for a few moments. A few hours after you have frozen the wart it may start to look raised and red and you may also have a faint tingling or burning sensation in the surrounding area. Be careful not to break or burst the blister otherwise this can re-infect the area and the wart will reform. The wart should fall off within a few days.
3. Salicylic Acid
Another way to freeze off warts is by using an over-the-counter product such as Compound-W. These products contain salicylic acid, which works by breaking down keratin, the protein that forms skin structure. Used on a wart, salicylic acid will gradually make the skin cells fall from the affected skin over time. New, healthy skin will form underneath.
4. Liquid Nitrogen
Another way to freeze off warts is to use liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is cold enough to be able to freeze a small localized area with little discomfort. It cures a wart by killing off the blood vessels in its skin so that it will die. After applying liquid nitrogen, a small blister will form. You must not be tempted to peel it off otherwise a new wart will grow underneath. After a number of days the blister will dry out, darken and the skin will appear to thicken. The dead wart will eventually slough off leaving healthy skin underneath. The advantage of this method is that it eliminates risk of infection because the skin is not broken.
