warts 'n' all

[Rosendula]

I have a small wart that first started to appear on the knuckle of my index finger a few months ago. I think it's now 'fully grown' and it's not really causing me any bother so I'm tempted to ignore it. However, I've heard that they can be passed on, so that's making me think I should get rid of it. I'm always kneading bread and stuff and at the thought I might spread it like that (or perhaps the oven heat will kill off the chances of that happening). Just wondering what you all think. Leave it? Or get rid of it? And what's the best way to get rid?

[Millymollymandy]

Get rid of it, they are contagious and you've got kids - when we were kids we were far more susceptible to warts on our hands than we are as adults (it seems) - probably cos kids play together and pass the virus to each other.

[Rosendula]

Susie, I have an old book of really old remedies that have ideas like that in. I'll type a few up later if I remember. I'm sure there was one about burying half of it at a crossroads under a full moon or something I'm not willing to try your tried-and-tested remedy.

I think MMM is right, though, and I should get rid. Does anyone know if there are over-the-counter things I can buy, or is it a case of going to the doctors and having it burned off like it says in my newly-acquired-off-Freegle encyclopedia? Or perhaps there's a Green Aura special????

[contadina]

I had one when I was a kid and the lotions were rubbish but repeated applications of dandelion milk worked.

[Milims]

I've heard of the dandelion milk thing - as well as wart weed and paying the blacksmith a penny to dip your finger in his quenching bucket! However the most effective way of ridding yourself of a wart - in my experience - and my sisters and my daughters - is to catch it on something like baler twine whilst throwing a bale and rip it out of your fonger by the root! I will bleed like b***ery (nope not buttery!) but it will go away!

[Rosendula]

I don't like the sound of that Milims.
I found the old book. Here are some others I'm not willing to try:

These folk rememdies come from Redwood Country, California.

• Put a dead cat under a porch during a full moon and it will remove warts from your hand.
• Cut your wart in half and bury one half of it at a fork in the road at mid-night. The buried half of the wart will keep sucking blood out of the other half, and the wart will die.
• To get rid of a wart, tie a knot around the wart and say a prayer in the Bible. The wart will disappear within three days.

....
TEXAS REMEDIES:

• Go into a cornfield on a clear night under a full moon and catch a frog. Kill it, cut off its hind legs and save it until the next full moon. Then go out again, catch a cricket, and kill it and cut off its right hind leg. Put both legs under your pillow. Wake every hour and change their positions. After doing this for twelve hours, sleep for six more hours and the warts will be gone upon awakening.
• The only way to get rid of warts is to sell them.
• Rub grasshopper spit on a wart twice a day and it will leave in two weeks.
• Take a tick from a dog and let the tick bite the wart. Two or three days later the wart should have vanished. You then put the tick back on the dog

There was an old English belief that warts were indicators of good or bad luck according to their position on the body. A wart on the right hand meant riches were to be expected. One on the face was believed to denote troubles of various kinds....

Go into a field and take a black snail, and rub them with the same nine times one way, and then nine times another and then stick that said snail upon a black thorn and the warts will waste.....

After picking each wart with a pin, stick the pins into the bark of an ashen tree and repeat this old English charm cure:
Ashen tree, ashen tree,
Pray buy these warts of me

KENTUCKY FOLK REMEDIES

• Rub the warts with a piece of bacon. Tie a string around the bacon and bury it secretly. The warts will leave within nine days.
• To cure warts, rub seven grains of corn on the warts, then feed the corn to your neighbour's chickens.
• If you have warts, wait until someone dies; then just at midnight, go to the graveyard and call to the devil. He will take away the warts.
• If you kiss your wart and then kiss someone, your wart will come off.
• Throw a piece of potato over your left shoulder. When the potato sprouts, your wart will be cured.
• To cure a wart, walk backwards in the moonlight to an old stump full of water and stick your hand into the stump

.....
TO DESTROY WARTS: Roast chicken feet and rub the warts with them, then bury them under the eaves.

This lot came from a book called "The Book of Home Remedies and Herbal Cures" by Carol Bishop, 1979.

So there you go. That's enough typing for one night I think

[Millymollymandy]

I have heard that Greater Celandine is supposed to help remove them, but you'll have to google quite how!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelidonium

I would suggest just going to a chemist and asking for something to remove warts. There are plenty of over the counter treatments that you paint onto the wart - the liquid turns white and burns the wart very (very!) slowly. After a few days or so the white bit will come off including a layer of skin. You just keep on painting on the treatment until it all goes.

I've recently treated a verruca (same virus) and it did take a few months to go.

[Millymollymandy]

Just read all those old folk remedies! Ohmygod, wouldn't want to be a cat/frog/chicken if my owner got a wart!

[frozenthunderbolt]

Get a ripe banana/nanana cut small piece of peel and place soft side down on the wart then cover with a plaster to hold in place. Change daily / twice daily if you can be bothered.
Should be gone in a week or two.
Ive got pretty good at spotting baby warts on my hands now and cut them out with scissors and put neat tea tree oil on the wound. seems to work ok.

[Millymollymandy]

and cut them out with scissors

Doesn't that hurt?!!!

I was googling yesterday and your banana remedy can be tried with garlic too, rub a clove of garlic over the wart then cover with a plaster. With the plant I mentioned earlier it's the milky sap that you dab on the wart. However it might be the wrong time of year for the plant!

Really ought to do something myself as I have a tiny one on the palm of my hand but it doesn't get any bigger (i'm always picking at it ) so it would be quite hard to treat.

[Susie]

Hello, I had a wart recently (and I'm going to make myself sound like a troll here but never mind) as well as a couple of verrucas, some of which had been hanging around for [cough] quite a while. The wart was on my wrist and it wasn't very big so didn't get in the way, but I didn't like it much. Anyway, I went to the chiropodist about the verrucas and he went through all the ways you can treat them, which didn't sound much fun (he was very enthusiastic, though, he said I could look on it 'as a long term project' ) and then when he saw my expression he said if I was open to 'alternative remedies' I could try Thuja, which is a homeopathic thing.

You buy it in Boots, and it is just tablets which I think you take for about 5 days. The only difficult thing I remember is you had to not eat for an amount of time before and after so it kept interfering with lunch, also it was a bit pricey (about £6?). But, the exciting conclusion to this tale is, the verrucas all went, and the wart went, in about a month, with no acid, burning, duct tape or frogs or anything! They kind of itched and then disappeared as if my immune system was fighting them. So I would definitely recommend Thuja, it was great.

[Millymollymandy]

Can I just eat my hedge?

[Green Aura]

Only in a 1/30m:1 dilution MMM

[Gert]

Hey Rosey, do you really have to put the tick back on the dog afterwards