Warts amd Molluscum

Warts are little viral intruders of the skin.  When they infect skin cells they tell the skin to grow in weird ways creating those interesting formations on kids’ skin known as warts.  Warts are also infectious and are usually passed from one kiddo to another in settings where skin is exposed and rubbed against surfaces such as at gymnastics, wrestling, or swimming.  But they can also be spread by one kiddo touching a wart on their skin and then touching another kiddo. 

The most common type of wart in kids is called molluscum contagiosum.  These warts can grow pretty much anywhere on the body.  They look like little flesh-colored pimples with a bellybutton looking dent in the middle.    Sometimes there is just one or two of them; sometimes there are dozens.  These warts can spread by itching and picking so, as you can imagine, they spread often among kids.  Luckily, they rarely transfer to adults.  If given enough time, the molluscum warts will go away, but the time for them to disappear is variable.  Anywhere from a couple weeks to a year or so.  There are some good recent studies that show that the simple application of duct tape daily to a subsect of the molluscum can speed up the healing timeline.  The adhesive in duct tape irritates the warts and triggers an immune response.  The covered ones become red and start to die. When this happens, often all of them will go away.  Try to keep them covered at all times with duct tape and remove the tape once per day, usually before bathing. Then replace it after bathing.  Some children don't like the tape on at school. At the very least, tape it every night.

 The other type of wart that we often see in kiddos is a verrucous viral wart.  These are usually the larger more cauliflower-looking growths on kids’ skin. Usually these are on kids’ fingers, hands, and feet.  These are the kind that we often treat with liquid nitrogen in clinic to freeze off the wart.  By freezing the wart, we hope to stop new growth and, similar to molluscum, try to instigate an immune response or the formation of a blister to push the wart out.  It often takes a few iterations of the liquid nitrogen application depending on the size/thickness of the wart.  We can speed up the resolution process with home treatment before and after the application of liquid nitrogen by soaking of the lesion in warm water for 10-15 minutes daily; followed by filing the lesion down with an emery board, coating it with salicylic acid (over the counter wart remover liquid), and covering the lesion with duct tape to prevent new growth and/or spread of the wart.