Our Washington Podiatrists Recommend the Swift Treatment Method for Plantar Wart Removal
We know plantar warts can be painful, especially if they develop on your heel or the ball of your foot—areas that take most of your weight while standing or walking. At Clover Podiatry, we work hard to get you back on your feet without the pain and discomfort of warts. That’s why we’ve adopted the use of the innovative microwave energy-based Swift treatment method for plantar wart removal. In this article, we explain what the Swift method is and how it can help you feel good as new.
What Are Plantar Warts?
Plantar warts, or verruca plantaris, are small, rough growths that develop on the soles of the feet. They’re caused by certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV). The virus enters the body through tiny cuts or cracks on the bottoms of your feet. The pressure of walking and standing often pushes their growth inward, beneath callused skin. As they form under the surface, they may develop finger-like roots that are difficult to treat.
Some people may be more at risk of developing plantar warts, including:
- Children or teens
- Someone with autoimmune diseases
- Individuals with weaker immune systems
- Persons over the age of 65
If plantar warts don’t resolve on their own and remain untreated, they may affect how you stand, walk, or run. Eventually, they may affect your posture or natural movements, causing discomfort and stress on muscles, tissues, or joints in your feet or ankles. And because HPV is highly contagious, especially in moist environments like wet towels, sweaty socks, and locker room floors, plantar warts can spread between people.
Symptoms of Plantar Warts
You may have a wart if you notice the following signs:
- Small, rough growths on the bottom of your foot, often at the base of the toes, the ball of the foot, or your heel
- Calluses (thick, hard skin) where a wart has grown inward
- Black dots, indicating small clotted blood vessels, often called wart seeds
- Mosaic warts, or a cluster of growths on the sole of the foot
- A growth interrupting the normal ridges of your foot
- Pain or tenderness on standing or walking
Common Treatment Options for Plantar Warts
At Clover Podiatry, our experienced foot doctors diagnose plantar warts by observation or by cutting off the top layer of the wart to check for wart seeds. If necessary, we might also take a small sample of the wart for lab testing and confirmation.
In minor cases, plantar warts eventually go away after a few months without medical treatment or with at-home treatments. Others require professional attention. If a long-time wart hasn’t gone away, or if you want to remove it sooner, here are some possible treatments:
- Cryotherapy. This is an in-office treatment that involves applying liquid nitrogen to the wart with a swab or spray to freeze and eradicate it. Your doctor may numb the area first, as the treatment can be painful. A blister forms around the warm and the dead tissue will slough off in a week or so. You may need to return to our Vancouver clinic for repeat treatments every 2–3 weeks until the wart disappears.
- Salicylic acid. Prescription-strength wart medicines contain salicylic acid that, when applied, peel off one layer at a time. Salicylic acid treatments may take weeks to fully remove a plantar wart.
- Surgery. Another treatment option is to cut away a wart or destroy it with an electric needle. These procedures carry the risk of scarring, and long-lasting pain from a scar on the sole of the foot, so we don’t often advise such measures unless other treatments have failed.
- Cantharidin. This medicine causes a blister under the wart, and you’ll likely need a follow-up procedure in a week or so to have the dead wart clipped off.
- Immunotherapy. Your doctor may prescribe medications to stimulate your immune system to fight viral warts.
- Laser treatments. Lasers cauterize tiny blood vessels. Eventually, the infected tissue dies, and the wart falls off. This treatment may need to be repeated once every 2–4 weeks.
- Vaccine. In some cases, an HPV vaccine has been found to treat warts.
What's the Swift Method for Removing Plantar Warts?
A more recent development in plantar warts treatment is the Swift therapy for plantar wart removal, which shows much higher rates of success than other methods. Swift delivers a low dose of microwave energy to plantar warts through a specialized probe. Swift microwave therapy (SMT) targets and treats the underlying HPV virus by stimulating a natural immune response in the body, treating the root cause of your warts rather than the symptom.
Benefits of Swift Therapy
SMT is Clover Podiatry’s top choice for plantar wart treatment because it’s a non-invasive, effective procedure—more than 80 percent of patients have great success with it after as few as three treatments. SMT doesn’t break the skin, which means you don’t need to use bandages or dressings, and you can continue your normal activity immediately following the procedure.
What to Expect From SMT
Swift therapy involves three or four treatments, with about four weeks between each procedure. Each visit takes about 10 minutes, and you can get back to your day immediately, with no home treatment required. Many patients experience some level of discomfort during the procedure, but the pain usually subsides quickly.
When to Visit Clover Podiatry for Swift Therapy
HPV can linger in your system for years, creating more potential problems with plantar warts and the spread of the virus. So if you notice any of the following, don’t hesitate to call our clinic right away to schedule a consultation:
- The feeling of having “painful pebbles” in your shoes
- Pain on compressing the sides of a wart
- A circular flat spot on your skin, with a depressed area in the middle
- “Yellowed,” crusty warts, especially if they have small black dots
- A lesion on your foot that is painful, bleeding, or has changed color
- At-home wart treatments haven’t worked, and you continue to get warts
- Discomfort that prevents your regular activities
- A lack of sensation in your feet.