I had a bunch of warts across my hands, almost all periungual (around the nails) except for a few on my fingertips, and I was starting to feel super hopeless. I'll give some backstory first, but scroll down if you just want the method.
Backstory
When this started, I only had 2 warts, one large and one small, close together on my thumb. I didn’t even know they were warts, and for months I was clipping them off. But eventually someone pointed it out to me and I was like, fuck.
First I tried an at-home freezing kit, which didn't work after multiple rounds. Then I tried OTC salicylic acid. Then I got them frozen at a dermatologist. Part of the reason none of this worked was that I wasn't consistent enough. But the warts would also sometimes fall off and grow back, or the skin would get so damaged that I had to stop treating until it healed.
Over the course of a year I half-assed my way through attempts to get rid of those 2 warts and always failed, and they slowly spread. One popped up on the adjacent finger. Then the finger next to that. Then the fingertip of that finger. Then one showed up on my other hand and the cycle started over there. Before I knew it, I was at 12 warts.
I was also dealing with some pretty bad anxiety at the time (not because of the warts, but they definitely didn't help). I wasn't sleeping or eating well, and I'm sure that made things worse by wearing down my immune system.
I slowly started healing (and still am), and eventually I hit a breaking point and said enough is enough. after about 9 months since realizing i had warts, they had super spread. I felt so ashamed, hiding my hands and lying about what they were. I felt hopeless because nothing I'd tried had worked and the problem had spiraled. I also had no health insurance, so liquid nitrogen at the dermatologist wasn't an option. So I did a bunch of research and came across this post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warts/comments/u3pi55/wart_stick_is_what_worked_for_me/
THE METHOD:
I didn't follow that post exactly, so here's what I did.
What I bought: Wart Stick, medical tape, and razor blades. I'd skip band-aids. They're expensive and annoying to put on when you have a lot of warts like I did.
The Wart Stick is 40% salicylic acid, which is the strongest you can get OTC, but it's hard to apply directly. So here was my routine:
1. Every night: Use a toothpick to dab some of the Wart Stick onto each wart, then cover it with medical tape.
2. In the morning: Take the tape off and rinse.
3. In the shower: Once your skin is soft from the water, use a razor blade to carefully shave off the white, dead skin. I did this about every other to every 2 days.
4. Disinfect the blade, and toss it after a couple of uses.
5. Repeat.
It helps to soak your warts before applying the acid, but I was often too lazy to do this. Doing something is better than doing nothing, so if you're going to skip a step, skip this one. But do it if you can. You can also do the debriding (filing or shaving off the dead skin) at night instead, as long as your skin has been soaked so it's soft. Also, screw emery boards, they barely do shit, take forever, and spread wart dust everywhere.
Be careful not to cut off too much skin when debriding. some of the photos on this subreddit will show you that. When it starts hurting or bleeding, you’ve probably cut too much. Focus on the dead wart skin. And be patient, they will eventually come off.
Make sure you’re not putting too much acid or the tape will squish it into your healthy skin. minimize that by putting vaseline around the wart with a q-tip, putting less acid on, waiting for the acid to dry a bit before putting on the medical tape, or giving the skin a break. I did all of these as needed. Salycylic will ruin your nails so if the tape is spreading it onto them, the vaseline trick will save you.
The whole process of putting on the acid is such a pain but I had it down to a science. I’d rip a bunch of pieces of medical tape and put them on my arm. I’d put the wart stick in between my toes. I’d toothpick each wart on my left hand and pluck a piece of tape on my arm to cover it. Then I’d do the same for the right. It’s crucial to make sure you don’t rub your finger against something and ruin the acid. It could also take a while (10-20 min) so watch some youtube while you do it.
Another important thing is keeping warts covered so they don’t spread. Personally I didn’t wanna walk around looking like a mummy, I thought it’d attract too much attention. I would literally have tape on most of my fingers. So I covered the 2 fingers with the most warts, and I was intentional with not touching the others. I also started moisturizing so my skin wasn’t cracking.
Results
After about 4–5 weeks of doing this semi-consistently (I missed plenty of days), I started seeing real progress. The warts were getting smaller, and eventually some of them stopped growing back after I'd shaved them down enough times. I kept an eye on the ones I thought were gone and kept treating the rest.
At some point I decided to take a break. Partly to give my skin a rest, partly to see which ones would come back, and honestly partly because I got lazy. And that's when something crazy happened: the remaining warts started disappearing on their own.
The one on my thumb that I hadn't finished treating just came off. And the 3 on my fingertip, which I had never treated during this round because I was saving the trickiest ones for last, have almost completely disappeared too. As of writing this, I can only see one wart left, and it looks like it's about to come off.
Why this happened:
Warts are really good at hiding from your immune system because they live only in the top layer of skin. All the acid and debriding irritates the skin and exposes the virus, which can finally trigger your immune system to recognize it. Once that happens, your body can fight it everywhere!!!!!!!!, including warts you never touched. This is called spontaneous regression. Getting healthier and less stressed probably helped too.
So if you're a few weeks in and feel like it's not working, keep going. You might be closer than you think. I’m so relieved that I got rid of these things and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Please just stay consistent. Because even if my immune system didn’t kick in, I was making amazing progress towards getting rid of my warts. I had eradicated 4 of them before I took the break to see if they’d come back. I hope this post helps someone. Lmk if u have any questions.
And hey if this doesn’t work for you, adapt. I’ve seen so many creative solutions on here. this is just what worked for me.
LASTLY, thank you to [u/ElonInfectedSpace](u/ElonInfectedSpace), the OP of the post I linked. Wherever you are I wish you well.
