What’s this lump on my foot?
Warts can be confused for other skin conditions like callouses and corns. A wart, however, is a skin lesion caused by a virus. Warts can occur anywhere on the feet but are most commonly found underneath the foot, these are called plantar warts. They are usually noticed as they can cause you pain due to a build up of hard skin over the wart. Warts can occur at any age but are more common in children and teenagers.
Cause
A Wart is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). The virus is spread through contact, public communal areas such as swimming pools, caravan park bathrooms and hotels remain high risk for the spread of warts. The virus is able to survive for short periods of time and can be passed on by one person contacting the same surface barefoot as someone else with the virus. An example of this could be one person walking around a swimming pool on the same flooring as a swimmer who has a wart.
Diagnosis
Our Podiatrists are able to diagnose your wart. We are able to gently remove the layer of hard skin overlying the wart, this will help us see the wart clearly. Sometimes there are multiple warts in the one location. The surface of a wart can have a cauliflower appearance with small black dots.
Treatment
Warts are stubborn, but you are lucky that our Podiatrists are even more stubborn, we won’t let a wart beat us! There are many treatments that we use for warts and they all act by stimulating the immune system to realise that there is a virus and to help remove it. It can take several treatments for a wart to resolve so it is important to be patient and continue with treatment as directed.