CONSULTATION PRICE:

With a Podiatrist  £35 - 15 MINUTES   

With a Foot Health Practitioner  £33 - 15 MINUTES   

 

Verrucas are notoriously difficult to get rid of. It would be a course of treatment to try and get rid of them. A verruca is a virus and so it is your immune system that actually gets rid of them, not the treatment. the treatment is designed to cause localised damage to the verruca tissue to get your immune system to recognise you have a virus, it then it has to make the medicine and deliver it to the verrucas. This sounds long winded and sometimes it can be. There are no treatments that are 100% successful.

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Your treatment options are as follows:

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1. leave them. they are not harmful to your health - the NHS recommend treatment if they are painful or spreading.

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2. Home treatments from the chemist - these can be effective eventually, but you will likely be treating it daily for at least 3 months. (I recommend the acid-based ones like bazuka, not so much the freezing ones)

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3. Occlusion therapy - this is the most cost-effective treatment and also the safest treatment. Using Hapla Band plaster tape; you cut a small piece and apply it to the verruca daily. Keep it on over the verrucas all day, remove for your shower and reapply after. This will trap moisture within the verruca and cause it to swell which will start an immune response. The other benefit is that it keeps the uncomfortable hard skin soft. We would be looking again at 3 months of treatment at least.

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4. Acid treatments in clinic. In the clinic we have access to stronger acids that are useful if home treatments are not having an effect. These treatments are £33 each time; the average number of appointments an adult will need is 10-14 treatments, but some people can take longer than that, and in some rare cases this treatment does not resolve the verruca and we have to look at alternative treatments.

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5. Cryotherapy/freezing (we do not offer this) typically is only 60% successful and is usually a painful treatment.

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6. Verruca Needling. This is more like a surgical procedure where the bottom of your foot is anaesthetised (numbed), and we make multiple punctures in the verruca using a needle. this introduces the viral particles straight to your immune system and can be 60-70% successful in one treatment, but this means there is a 30-40% chance that they will not be resolved or maybe half of them will go. I have found personally that this is a great treatment option for patients who have already tried different treatments without success. This operation is £280 with all follow up appointments included. 

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7. 'Swift' microwaving treatment. This has a similar success rate to needling and again is more effective if you have tried other treatments first. This is a very painful treatment but can be effective for very stubborn verrucas. (we do not offer this)

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8. Surgical removal (we do not offer this) for individuals with a compromised immune system sometimes there is no other option except this. This should be the last resort as there is a risk that the area of verruca tissue that was removed is just filled in with uncomfortable scar tissue, so this is not an ideal treatment unless necessary.

 

 

Most patients if they have not tried any treatment yet, we encourage them to pick a home treatment like the bazooka (salicylic acid) or occlusion therapy and then return to us if they feel this is not working.

 

I hope this was helpful and gives you a clear picture of your options. If you have any questions please email me at daniel.footstop@gmail.com. If you would like to start a clinic based treatment plan then you can contact our reception team to get booked in.

 

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