Plantar Warts
The most advanced options for your painful plantar warts.
Warts, raised bumps on the skin caused by a virus, can appear as easily on your feet as any other part of the body. Your soles are especially susceptible to a unique condition known as a plantar wart. These warts are flat, thick, and hard, and may be mistaken for a callus or scar tissue.
Most foot warts are harmless, but they are highly contagious and can be irritating. People with plantar warts may experience pain while walking, and not treating the wart can cause it to grow and spread. To get your warts treated, come into one of the Advanced Foot and Ankle Centers of Illinois offices in the Chicago area.
Understanding Warts
If you have a wart anywhere on your body, it’s because you picked up the human papillomavirus somewhere. Plantar warts usually develop because your bare feet came in contact with the virus, and an opening in your skin (due to a cut, a crack, or an area of the skin softened by long exposure to water) allowed the virus to enter your blood stream.
Most warts look like small fleshy mounds, while plantar warts resemble a hard layer of dead skin with tiny black pinpricks in the center. Feet are ideal growing grounds for warts, since the virus thrives in moist and warm conditions, like the inside of your shoe.
Treating Warts with Swift Therapy
When you come into one of our offices, your podiatrist will examine the wart and formulate an appropriate treatment plan.
Recently, Swift Therapy has been developed to help combat warts. Unlike other treatments, Swift Therapy for Plantar Warts works by killing the virus on the inside, rather than external efforts to remove the warts.
The treatment works by using microwave energy to activate the immune response in your feet so that your body starts to attack the wart virus and get rid of them. In usual circumstances, it can take years for the immune system to act against warts, given their location, so this therapy helps rush the process.
Swift Therapy is $250 per session and available at our Joliet office. We usually recommend 3 treatments, but we have seen it take anywhere from 1-4 completed treatments. The microwaves are emitted for about two to three seconds per wart. While the procedure might be mildly uncomfortable for the duration of the microwave emission (like a sharp needle scratch), the overall treatment is not painful.
Many patients report seeing a notable reduction in their plantar warts after the first session.
Get the Wart Treatment You Need Now
Remember, if one treatment doesn’t work, our team will try something else. As long as the treatments are performed by a professional, you should experience limited side effects and successfully get rid of the wart.
Call any of our Chicago area offices below or click the “Request Appointment” button to reach out to us electronically.