/assets/images/provider/photos/2697208.jpg)
Dealing with Plantar Warts as a Teacher: 4 Essential Tips
Many professions, including teaching, require you to be on your feet all day. Today's youth rely on teachers to provide an education that carries them into adulthood.
Teachers face various obstacles each day, including painful feet. Standing before your class is highly uncomfortable if you have a plantar wart. By the end of the day, the pain is often excruciating.
However, you don't have to suffer through plantar warts alone. Expert help awaits at Manhattan Podiatry Group in and around New York City. Dr. Mark Sharobeem offers complimentary foot screenings to teachers to provide long-term relief from foot conditions like plantar warts.
The facts on plantar warts
Plantar warts are one of the many conditions that affect your feet. Although they may sometimes cause lesser forms of discomfort, teachers and other professionals who stand all day may find the condition excruciating.
Plantar warts often form on the bottom of the foot, especially on the weight-bearing areas of the skin. These warts develop after the human papillomavirus (HPV) enters through a cut in the skin and leads to an infection.
You may have just one plantar wart (solitary) or many warts in one area, called mosaic warts. The HPV virus causes warts in other regions of the body as well.
People are most likely to come into contact with HPV when they walk barefoot in a gym, around a pool, or in the locker room at school. You may also get a plantar wart from sharing shoes or socks with someone who has the virus.
HPV doesn't cause symptoms immediately after it enters the skin. It may take up to six months for a wart to form after you come into contact with the virus.
What are the symptoms?
When you're a teacher on your feet all day, one of the telltale signs of a plantar wart is a painful spot on the bottom of your foot. Other symptoms may include:
- Skin that resembles cauliflower
- Rough patches of skin
- Bleeding
- Tenderness
- Extreme pain
- Black or brown spots under the skin
- Discoloration around the wart
Depending on where the virus enters your skin, you may notice a single area on the foot that looks like a wart or clusters of warts.
As a teacher, you may notice the pain of a plantar wart more when you're on your feet for long periods.
Tips to ease plantar wart discomfort
If you're passionate about teaching, you don't have to let plantar warts get you down. Dr. Sharobeem and his team offer several tips to deal with plantar warts when you're on your feet all day. These tips include:
1. Trying duct tape
Duct tape is one of the home remedies you can try to get rid of the wart on your own. Although it takes several weeks, you should be able to remove the wart with tweezers or an exfoliating tool.
To use duct tape, apply a small piece over the wart and change it out every few days. The tape works by peeling off layers of the wart until you can eliminate it.
2. Salicylic acid can help
Salicylic acid is the main ingredient in many acne medications, but it breaks down tough skin in higher concentrations. Salicylic acid is the main ingredient in many over-the-counter (OTC) wart removal treatments.
With the right concentration of salicylic acid, you should be able to pull the wart out or peel it off within a few weeks of starting treatment.
3. Take breaks from standing
A plantar wart's pain worsens as you stand on it for long periods. As a teacher, this may mean extreme pain all day if you don't take breaks.
While treating a plantar wart, try to rest your feet occasionally. While your kids are taking a test, sit at the desk, or prop your feet up during lunch and recess.
4. Consider professional treatment
If you can't eliminate the plantar wart by yourself, consider talking to Dr. Sharobeem about professional treatments. He may recommend cryotherapy to freeze the wart off or laser therapy to kill the wart permanently.
Call Manhattan Podiatry Group today to make an appointment or request a consultation at our convenient locations in and around New York City (Downtown Manhattan, Gramercy Park, and Staten Island) and Manalapan, New Jersey, using our convenient online booking tool.