Warts, although usually harmless, are generally considered unsightly and can be very painful, especially on the feet. The small horny skin growths are caused by viruses and are often not easy to get rid of. In addition to conventional dermatological treatment methods, many home remedies promise help against warts.
What helps against warts?
Celandine is one of the medicinal plants that can be successfully used against warts. If you present to a dermatologist with a wart, they will often recommend a patch, wart stick or lotion with salicylic acid. The acid, when applied to the wart, gradually dissolves it. You can make your own all-natural wart plaster by cutting a clean piece of willow bark the size of the wart and attaching it to the growth with a plaster. Willow bark is naturally rich in salicylic acid. As with treatment with salicylic acid from the pharmacy, the plaster should be changed daily, the skin soaked in water and the dissolved layers of skin removed with a pumice stone. Traditional home remedies for warts and other skin diseases are the milky juices from the stems of celandine and spurge. These juices contain natural alkaloids that act as cytotoxins and, among other things, prevent cell division. Thus, they are natural cytostatics that can slow down skin growths and destroy the skin tissue affected by the viruses. The milky sap that comes out of a broken celandine or spurge stem can also be used to dab a wart very precisely. If this procedure is repeated regularly, it often leads to the regression of the warts. If fresh plants are not available, there is celandine mother tincture in the pharmacy, which can be applied directly or mixed with a skin cream. Other home remedies for warts are castor oil, tea tree oil, garlic or a solution of vinegar and salt. In any case, it is important to apply these remedies regularly. The skin growth should be dabbed or brushed several times a day, dead upper layers of the skin should be removed again, so that the remedies can reach the underlying wart tissue. The most important ally in fighting warts is the body’s immune system. Echinacea tincture or vitamins A and C can be applied to the wart and surrounding skin areas to stimulate immune cells locally. Brushing with lemon juice is also said to help against warts.
Quick help
The fastest methods to get rid of warts are surgical removal (but here the subsequent healing process for this is often long and accompanied by pain) and icing with liquid nitrogen. However, even icing often requires several sessions. In addition, a week often passes before the wart actually falls off. Even what can be done at home to treat warts usually takes time. According to American and French studies from 2002-2003, one of the most reliable methods of removing warts – even more effective than icing! – is the treatment with adhesive tape. For this purpose, the wart is taped with insulating tape from the hardware store (Duct Tape). After seven days, the tape is removed, the skin is soaked in soapy water and rubbed with pumice stone. After 12 hours, the treatment is repeated with new tape, until the wart is completely removed. This can take two months, but was successful in 85 percent of the cases examined in the studies.
Alternative remedies
Traditionally, discussing warts has been among the most commonly used and relatively effective cures. Whether this is due to an activation of the immune system by some kind of autosuggestion or placebo effect, or to a re-balancing of the organism that can hardly be expressed in the language of modern medicine remains to be seen. The fact is: warts respond amazingly well to rituals, spells and suggestion. If you do not have an experienced herbalist nearby, you can also turn to some alternative practitioners. Healing spells and blessings are generally most effective during the waning moon. For children, wart-talking often works even better than any other method. “Buying off” can also help: As soon as the contract of sale is drawn up and the money is handed over, the wart disappears.
