Natural Remedies for Plantar Warts (Verrucas)

I can't believe it, but duct tape actually worked in getting rid of a plantars wart I've had on the ball of my foot since I was a teenager, which was decades ago! It's slow-going, but it works. Prior to this, I had tried every product and procedure imaginable. Nothing worked. At best, I would have temporary relief but the wart would *always* grow back within weeks.

Just put a good-sized piece of tape over the wart and push down the sides of the tape to make sure it sticks well. When you bathe/shower, dry it off well and put a new piece of tape on. After a couple of days, you'll notice that the wart gets puffy with dead skin. Carefully use a razor blade (I put tape on one of the edges of the blade to make it easier to handle and safer to use) to slice off some of the dead skin - not too much. Just hold the blade parallel to the raised skin and shave a little bit off, then put a fresh piece of tape on. Repeat that process every few days - shaving just a tad of the dead skin off and never let the wart be without duct tape on it.

It took a few months of patience and diligence, but that sucker is GONE now! ;-) It's been five months and (knocks wood) - no sign of it. It feels sooo good to *finally* be rid of the pain that came with every step I took for all those years. As someone who takes nothing for granted, I am so grateful for the relief. I appreciate it every single day.

If your patient and diligent, the duct tape method *will* work.

Years ago I had plantar warts all over my feet. They were gross and I remember once going tubing down the Saco in Maine and being so embarrassed because everyone could see them. And to top it off they're so painful. I had a surprise cure for mine. I gave up refined sugar completely for another reason altogether and a by-product of that is every single one of the warts disappeared in a matter of a month and never came back.

Grapefruit Seed Extract (GSE) applied directly to a wart, topped with GSE on the cotton of a bandaid, and secured by athletic tape was the painless and easy remedy for a thumb on one son's thumb and plantar warts on my other son's feet. Duct tape was too much of a pain and was too obvious.

My 7 yo son developed a pea-sized wart on palm side of his thumb. I just put a few drops of GSE on it and made sure to keep it covered 24/7 with a bandaid and that's all it took. After the core turned black and was removed with tweezers, we continued to put GSE in the hole where the wart was until it filled in, so maybe a week or so? No pain and no scar and it's been over a year with no return.

Plantar warts have been a much harder process. Almost two months ago, my other son told me his feet hurt. I took a look and there were clusters of small to large plantar warts on both feet. I think he got them from the locker room floor at school since I've learned that several of his friends also have them. I'm not sure if it is because there were so many or if it's because plantar warts are so difficult to treat, but it's been about 6 weeks since I first started putting GSE on them and he's finally down to 2 as of tonight. To be honest, there were so many and it took quite awhile to clean, treat, and bandage his feet that I wasn't very consistent during the first 3-4 weeks or so and I'm sure that had a lot to do with the slow progress during that time. About two weeks ago I realized summer was pretty much here and he couldn't go barefoot anywhere, so I got serious and filed off as much of the top layer of each wart as I could without hurting him. (I immediately threw the callous file away since it was contagious.) Then I slathered the entire area with GSE and let it sit for a few minutes and put several drops GSE on the cotton part of several bandaids and covered the entire. Then I secured the whole area with athletic tape on top of the bandaids to make sure it stayed put until the next night. This had an immediate effect and the largest one was almost gone within the week. That foot completely cleared a few days ago and the holes are almost filled back in with healthy skin already. Now I'm just down to two small ones under his other toe. I'll keep at it every day and both feet should be completely clear within a few more days. I think more than anything, filing the top layer off and consistent treatment with plenty of GSE and covering the entire area is what made the difference. So thankful this is a painless remedy since I had a friend get hers burned off and she was in so much pain that she had trouble walking for over a week - and they are already starting to return and it's been less than a year!

Pros: no pain, no scars, natural, warts don't seem to come back if treated uncovered for a bit after wart removed and healthy skin is present

Cons: can take awhile, daily treatment is time consuming on a large area like feet, have to keep bandaged during treatment

PS. Don't forget to wear clean socks at ALL times and sanitize the shower floor after EACH use to prevent spreading the virus to healthy skin and/or other people.

Update on 3% hydrogen peroxide on plantar warts:

Since reading Joe's post about hydrogen peroxide and peroxideman.com, I've been playing with HP and, over the last 4 days, have applied a cotton pad soaked with HP on plantar warts on my left foot for just a minute or two, each day.

The pain of walking on them was gone the very first day and it had shrunk significantly by the 3rd day. Today it's flat and nearly gone but there's been another effect that I wasn't expecting which is that my leg feels like it's "breathing". As if it had been in a cast, if your readers know what I mean by that. It's as if I'd been wearing tight knee socks and took them off! It's really pretty amazing.

I started on my right foot today by soaking some of the cotton pads in my borax solution and applying that to the warts because it softens the callouses to such an extent that one can simply peel them right off. I did this to make the HP's trip through the wart a little easier.

I also took two aspirins and wetted some aspirin powder and applied that to the warts and left it sit for a bit before I applied the HP. I did this because I suspect that warts - being viral - just batten down the hatches when they're attacked by remedies which would explain why they keep coming back and aspirin, apparently, is reported to dissolve the "shell" of viruses so I'm hoping the HP along with the vitamin C I take will finish them off, once and for all! So, we'll see what happens...

Just so you know, these are applications of HP that I never would have thought of had I not read Joe's post and the article on the website so, again, THANK YOU, JOE AND EC!! I never would have believed it if the effects hadn't been so profound!

XXOOXX

I had a plantar wart on my clavicle. Never had one before. Waited three weeks for it to heal on its own. Then I placed on it cotton soaked with hydrogen peroxide twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. Kept it there with masking tape. It healed in about 10 days.

Lugol's Iodine for Stubborn Warts

I had a really nasty plantar wart on the ball of my foot for 5+ years. I tried many many things to get rid of it and nothing worked (prescription and natural remedies), and was contemplating having it cut out because it was very painful. Then I read somewhere on the net that Lugol's iodine worked. I scrubbed the wart down in the shower with a pumice stone till it bled a bit, then put a big drop of iodine on the wart and let it fully soak in, then covered it with duct tape. I did this repetitively every 3ish days and after about 3 weeks, the wart turned black and then fell out a few days later. It was really like a miracle after years of annoyance.. If it worked for me, I'm sure it will work for you! Probably a bit more powerful than ACV and banana skin methods I reckon. Best of luck to you:)

My son developed large warts on the bottom of his feet, underneath his toes. Our doctor tried burning them off a couple of times with liquid nitrogen, but they came back with a vengeance! They eventually grew to the size of small golf balls and we were all very concerned about his feet. Before his leaving to go back to college after Christmas, I gave him a bottle of Lugol's Iodine and a roll of duct tape. He applied the iodine to the warts after his shower in the morning and then covered them with duct tape. He removed the tape at night and before going to bed, repeated the same routine. It took about 6 weeks, but the warts completely disappeared and have not returned, 3 years later.

Thank you Earth Clinic, you're the best!

This cure worked - the surface of the warts on each foot had to be scrubbed to allow application to penetrate first. Lugol"s iodine was applied with a cotton ball to each wart every day and then DMSO Aloe Vera was applied on top of each wart. It took about 3 weeks for them to disappear. Every day they looked better and better.

After years of trying various remedies (banana peel, ACV, tea tree oil, coconut oil, caster oil etc) for a stubborn wart on my toe, I tried the white sap from the common weed, sow thistle. I applied the white sap daily for a month; the wart has completely gone!

The duct tape worked for my daughter's plantar wart too. She was only 8 at the time and I was afraid foot doctor methods would be painful. I read on another site to dab it with sulfur powder and cover with duct tape. It took two months because we didn't do it every day but it was pain-free and never came back. And cheaper than the doctor.

Dear Friends,

I suffered with plantar wart in my right plantar for about 1 year, I was trying ACV, but it didn't work out.Then I started to cut the wart area often and I applied hot jaggary syrup, this method somewhat worked for me, however my plantar wart was not completely cured. It reduced only pain. I tried another method, that is the sweet flag ( in tamil, its called vasambu ), I burnt the sweet flag and I applied its charcoal over the wart area for about 2 weeks, what a surprise my plantar wart completely disappeared now.

My eldest son had golfball sized wart cluster on his heel x yrs which MD said he would not remove surgically as that would immobilize him for 6 mos. We had tried Apple Cider Vinegar + duct tape with limited success. MD recommended Tagamet 500 mg twice daily. in 4 days the warts were completely gone and have not returned in six years. My son stopped the Tagamet once the warts were gone.

Younger son has found that 500mg/day of Evening Primrose oil immediately stops warts once they start. He tried Tagamet but had an adverse reaction to it.

Hope one of these is helpful!

I am very happy to report victory over a very stubborn plantar wart.

Over the winter my son showed me a large plantar wart on the bottom of his foot. He hadn't mentioned it, not knowing what it was, but it hurt and he was on his feet a lot at work. He said it felt like he had a pebble in his boot.

Since we cured a small wart on my daughter's finger with just a few applications of 25% oregano oil I tried that first. Every night. For weeks, to no avail.

I checked EC for remedies and picked a mixture of crushed aspirin with castor oil paste. I love aspirin and castor oil and was sure this would work. I treated him every night for many weeks with this; I left it on as a poultice. And while it softened the wart and reduced pain during the day, it wasn't curing the wart.

I switched to the banana peel remedy since it is so very popular at Earth Clinic. I scraped the inside of a banana peel and placed it on the wart every night and covered it with a bandaid. I did this for weeks. It wasn't helping... or at least, it wasn't curing. He felt like what I was doing helping, but it wasn't getting rid of the wart!

Finally I tried tea tree and frankincense essential oil, one drop of each on the wart, each night. I did this for a few weeks every night. And suddenly we were seeing improvement. It didn't look 100% but he said it was better. That was weeks ago. Tonight I checked and his foot is totally healed.

That wart took months to heal. My son thought that everything helped some, but it was those two essential oils that did the trick! If I didn't have frankincense, I would have used just tea tree as it seems to work for many people.

~Mama to Many~

My 7 year old daughter had a plantars wart on the heel of her foot for over a year. The doctor said it had to be cut out. I was worried about the pain and healing of that, and also that she would have to miss her favorite activities (gymnastics, ice skating, etc. )

Instead I used tea tree oil. Every morning and night I put a band-aid on her wart that had 1 drop of oil on the gauze area. I did the same thing at night and we covered the band-aid with a sock so it didn't come off while she was sleeping.

I had read that if you do this for about 3 weeks the wart will just pop out. Well, I wanted to go for 4 weeks, but after about 3 weeks my daughter said she needed a day off.

That evening I looked at her wart and very gently used my fingernail to see if the wart would come out. It popped right out with absolutely no pain. It left a cone-like hole that looked like it would hurt, but she said she couldn't feel anything.

Over time, the hole closed up. The wart never returned, she didn't miss one day of any of her activities, and there was never any discomfort.

I had 3 plantars warts I had tried to get rid of for 10 years. I froze them off, used salicylic acid, compound w, slept for months with apple cider vinegar on cotton balls taped on the areas of the foot. Then, I found out I my serum D levels were 29 ng/ml.

I started taking 10,000 IU of Vitamin D3 daily. Within a month, the plantars warts were gone.