Plantar Warts Treatment

What Are Plantar Warts?

Warts are raised, fleshy, grainy growths that form due to a viral infection in the uppermost layers of skin. If you look closely, you may notice that the wart disrupts the natural “lines” of your footprint, and may have one or more black “pinpoints” (caused by small, clotted blood vessels) within the lesion.

When a wart is in a load-bearing area, such as under the heel or ball of the foot, it may appear flattened and covered by hard, callused skin. It also may be painful or tender.

How Did I Get Plantar Warts?

Warts are caused by strains of the human papillomavirus or HPV.

The virus is very common and especially prefers environments that are warm and moist—like the inside of your shoes or the floors of gyms, locker rooms, or pool decks. If you don’t change your shoes and socks when they get damp, or you walk barefoot in public spaces, you may be more at risk of developing warts.

The virus enters the upper layers of skin through weak points, including cuts or tiny breaks. These can be so small you don’t even really notice them.

Advanced Treatment for Plantar Warts: Swift Microwave Therapy

Swift Microwave Therapy is a revolutionary treatment option for warts that offers improved cure rates, greater convenience, less pain, and zero downtime or aftercare when compared to traditional wart therapies.

Instead of cutting out, peeling away, or freezing off the wart (like traditional treatments), Swift is an immunotherapy technique that helps your body’s immune system rapidly fight off the infection. Following this, the wart disappears on its own, without needing to be forcibly destroyed or removed.

The main reason that warts take so long to heal on their own, under normal circumstances, is because the immune system typically doesn’t “patrol” the uppermost layers of skin as vigilantly as other areas of the body. The virus can thus evade detection and avoid being targeted for removal by the body.

Swift uses a short (2-3 seconds) burst of microwaves to heat up water molecules in the upper layers of skin, which cause enough friction to get the immune system’s attention. The HPV is caught red-handed, and the body gets to work healing the wart.

What Can I Expect From Plantar Warts Treatment in Lee's Summit?

At the session, we’ll gently debride the wart to improve contact, which is completely painless. Then, we’ll perform the actual microwave therapy.

As stated, this only takes a couple of seconds. You may feel some mild discomfort and a heating sensation. However, this is extremely short-lived. No anesthetics are needed.

Because the therapy is non-invasive, there’s no bleeding or bandages, either, and you don’t need to do anything afterward at home. Just go back to your normal day-to-day routine.

To fully eradicate your warts, you usually need about 3-4 sessions of the Swift Therapy. (This is about the same number that you’d need for more destructive therapies as well.)

Advantages of Swift Therapy

Why choose Swift Microwave Therapy over more traditional forms of therapy for wart removal? There are many significant reasons, including:

There’s no post-procedural pain. Any discomfort you might feel during the 2-3 seconds of therapy application will subside almost immediately thereafter, with no lingering effects.
It’s extremely convenient. Therapy sessions take only a few minutes, with no aftercare to worry about. You don’t even need a bandage. You could do it on a lunch break and go right back to your day.
It’s highly effective. More than 4 out of 5 patients achieve success with this treatment, which is a better rate than conventional treatments.
It’s safe. Microwave therapy has a long track record of safety, and because Swift is completely non-invasive, there is minimal risk of infections or complications.

When you compare Swift to conventional treatments like cryotherapy or salicylic acid, the choice is clear. Swift offers many benefits and improvements with hardly any downsides. That’s why it’s become the treatment of choice for our office.

Get Rid of Your Plantar Warts the Easy Way at Our Lee's Summit Podiatry Office

If you’re struggling with plantar warts that just won’t go away, please give our office a call. Swift Microwave Therapy is a much better choice than traditional wart treatments—to say nothing of home remedies—and it’s completely safe for kids, too!