If you have a wart on your hand, it means you've been in contact with a strain of the human papillomavirus, or HPV. Warts do not negatively impact your health, but they can get irritated, feel itchy or just look bad. Warts go away on their own, but that can take as long as a year or more. Over-the-counter medicines speed the process up to a few weeks, but they can be expensive and sometimes painful. If you have the time and patience to treat warts on our own, do so with little more than warm water, a pumice stone and some vitamin E oil.
Step 1
Soak your hand in a bowl or sink full of warm water for 10 to 20 minutes to soften the top layer of skin on your wart. Wart treatments are more effective on moist skin, according to FamilyDoctor.org.
Step 2
Use a coarse callus sander, pumice stone or emery board to gently buff away the topmost layer of skin on the wart to improve vitamin E oil penetration and to start sloughing away your wart. Stop at the top layer to keep your wart from bleeding or getting infected.
Step 3
Rinse away the dead skin and pat your hand dry.
Step 4
Break open a single 25,000 IU capsule of vitamin E and massage the oil into your wart. Dr. Robert Garry, professor at the Tulane University School of Medicine, studies wart remedies and has found vitamin E to be a successful treatment, according to "The Doctor's Book of Home Remedies."
Step 5
Use the pumice stone on dry skin the following day to remove the dead top layer of wart skin, according to FamilyDoctor.org. You can do this after you soak your hand if you find it more comfortable to scrape away moistened skin, but avoid scraping both dry and moist skin to prevent injury, bleeding or infection.
Step 6
Repeat this treatment daily for several weeks -- or as long as several months -- until you can't see your wart anymore. Healing time differs for each person and each wart.
Tips and Warnings
- There's no evidence that one natural remedy works any better than another. "The Doctor's Book of Home Remedies" also mentions using castor oil, clove oil, unripe fig juice, aloe vera gel and raw potato juice in place of vitamin E oil. To use these remedies, follow the instructions for vitamin E treatment, but swap out the vitamin E oil for your preferred natural remedy.
- None of these remedies have been proven safe or effective by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so use with care or under the supervision of a doctor or professional natural healer.
Things You'll Need
- Pumice stone, callus sander or emery board
- Vitamin E capsules
