Warts are caused by a virus in your body. This virus can be transmitted by touching a wart on another person; however, it is also a virus that can just occur naturally in many people. Warts are difficult to treat and often treatments are painful and lengthy. Because warts are so tricky to treat and there is no guaranteed treatment for them, it is possible for warts to become more prominent and spread, prior to a physician and patient being able to actually get them under control. There are several factors that can make warts worse, furthermore, making treatment even more difficult.
Untreated Warts
The longer warts go untreated, the more difficult they will be to remove and the more they will spread. The virus that treats warts is transmitted by contact with a wart, essentially through skin-to-skin contact. The longer a wart is permitted to grow without treatment, the larger the possibility it has for causing warts on other parts of your body and for growing larger itself. Therefore, after a wart appears on your body, it is essential that you see a dermatologist immediately so that treatment may begin.
Poorly Treated Warts
There are many methods for treating warts. Common methods of treatment include: scraping away the top layers of the skin with a scalpel and freezing the wart to kill the root of the virus, applying topical ointments, and wearing patches over the wart that will emit a continuous, low-level of medicine over an extended period of time to kill the wart’s root. These methods are not extremely painful, but can be uncomfortable.
However, not all treatments work equally on every individual. Some patients do not respond to topical ointments and must resort to the scraping and freezing method. However, some patients can remove their warts simply by using over-the-counter medicines.
Not treating a wart in the way that will kill the root of the wart will make warts worse because it allows the virus to continue to grow and spread. If the treatment you are using does not show significant results after three to four months, consider asking about another treatment method.
Dry Skin
One of the best ways to prevent the spread of warts is to keep your skin clean and moisturized. Showering after exercising or becoming sweaty and not letting excess oils gather on your skin, as well as using a hypoallergenic moisturizer on your skin, will inhibit the growth of current warts and assist in preventing new warts from developing.
Not Avoiding Contact
One of the best ways to prevent warts from becoming worse is to not come into direct contact with warts on another individual, and to not rub your own warts against other areas of your skin. The more the wart virus comes into contact with other areas of skin, the more likely it is that warts will spread and develop in other areas. Therefore, make sure to not shake hands or otherwise come in contact with another individual’s warts, if obvious or known to you. Additionally, try to use separate or disposable washcloths or other items to clean your warts and do not reuse them on other parts of your body.
