Can Duct Tape Cure Warts?

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Duct tape seems to be used for everything, but can it cure a wart? And I don’t mean by ripping the wart off. Someone in this house has a nasty plantar wart (on the ball of their foot) that needs to be dealt with. This person would not agree to share this story on my blog unless I agreed to anonymity. So, please forgive me for any awkward wording. One treatment option is to go to the doctor and have the area treated with liquid nitrogen, a procedure called cryotherapy. This requires time off of work and/or school to go to the doctor, plus there is likely to be blistering around the area treated which does not sound pleasant…but especially on the bottom of your foot. OUCH! Then in a couple weeks another trip to the doctor to do it again. Ugh, ain’t nobody got time for that. Especially if there is a better way. Apparently, duct tape can be used to treat a wart and is reportedly more effective than the cryotherapy. Boom! That’s right MORE effective. Don’t just take my word for it, read it at WebMD.

Now, this person was resisting treatment, choosing to believe the wart would just go away on its own. So, I did what any rational person would do….I googled pictures of gnarly plantar warts in order to convince them. Warning: do not do this if you are easily disgusted. Unfortunately, this sort of backfired because the infected thought it was grossly funny and I wound up gagging at the sink, which only increased the hilarity. At least this person agreed to try the duct tape. Other sources referenced the use of salicylic acid or oregano essential oil in addition to the duct tape. I have the oregano oil so that is what we are going to try first. We tried applying a piece of tape just bigger than the wart, but it did not stay in place. This time we are wrapping the duct tape all the way around the foot and in six days remove the tape, soak the foot and scrub the wart, air it out for 12 hours– then repeat. In the experiment, the participants were instructed to do this for two months, but most were gone within 28 days. Keeping my fingers crossed!

So, will this treatment help us avoid 2-3 expensive and time-consuming trips to the doctor? I guess we will find out in 28 days! What did we ever do before Google?

Love and wellness,

Sara

P.S. I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. I am simply sharing what we are trying at our house.

One thought on “Can Duct Tape Cure Warts?”

  1. Katie Jenkins April 13, 2017 / 1:41 am

    Hmmm, I wonder who this could be…😜

    Fantastic post, Sara! Be sure to keep us up to date on how it goes.

    I’m pretty positive you’re already well aware of this remedy, but I read good things about using apple cider vinegar a while back.

    I think it said to saturate a cotton ball with it and then duct tape it to the wart. I’m sure one is supposed to do this every few days until the sucker falls off.

    Let us know how well the duct tape stays on. Since it’ll be on a sweaty little foot, I wonder if it’ll stay stuck for days at a time.

    If you do end up having problems, of course use the duct tape on the actual wart, but look into buying a roll of the tape I use to tape my feet for dance. It stays put for at least a week and that’s after dancing, sweating, and all the showers. You can wrap that stuff over the duct tape and then you won’t have to mess with it agaain until it’s time to switch out the duct tape.

    The tape is called Lueko tape. You can but it on amazon.

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