By Sheila Dwyer, MedTech1 Staff
Amy Blakeley is known affectionately as “Imelda Marcos” to her family and friends. She estimates that she owns 25 pairs of shoes—dress shoes, running shoes, boots. Some of them she has owned since college.
So she was disappointed when, about a year ago, she noticed a plantar wart on her heel. Amy, age 30, knew that these warts were highly contagious and easily spread because she got her first plantar wart several years ago when she was in college.
Plantar warts are small, bumpy growths that develop on the bottom of the foot. They are a type of infection caused by a strain of the human papillomavirus, which enters the skin through small cuts and abrasions. Like other viral infections, plantar warts are highly contagious and are often spread in public swimming pools or communal showers. As people age, they tend to build an immunity to the virus, so plantar warts are more commonly found in children.
When she had plantar warts in college, Amy went to campus health services for treatment. “It wasn’t state of the art medical care. They actually used some sort of dry ice thing to freeze them. When I told my [more recent] podiatrist about that, he sort of wrinkled his nose and said, ‘We don’t do that.’” Regardless, the warts, which she believes she picked up from the communal showers in her dormitory, did not enter her mind for several years.
Amy has long since stopped using communal showers. But she also learned that “there are some people who are more susceptible to [plantar warts] than others.” She thinks that her most recent crop of plantar warts came from a pedicure she received last year.
She tried to treat them with over-the-counter medication at the advice of her podiatrist. When that did not work, they tried something harsher. “I would go in [to the doctor’s office] once every other week and he would scrape away dead tissue and then use a low-grade acid that exfoliates the top layer. Then we would follow up that treatment with these pads that you can get over the counter, that basically kill the top layer of tissue…But that did not work either.” Amy had a more complicated strain of plantar warts known as mosaic warts. This basically meant that the “mother” wart had spawned several “baby” warts.
For most people, plantar warts will disappear on their own within two years. However, they are also apt to spread and feel tender if not treated. For some people, the pain associated with plantar warts affects their gait. Though her warts spread, Amy did not experience any pain because they were atypically located on the soles of her feet.
She decided to proceed with a laser treatment to rid her feet of the warts anyway. “I left them for a few months and they just seemed to get worse. And there were more of them. Quite honestly, it was vanity more than anything else. I didn’t want to go get pedicures with warts on my feet and spread them to other people. And I also hated the idea of not being able to wear open-toed shoes.”
Amy’s podiatrist suggested laser treatment, now a common and effective method of wart removal. He performed a procedure known as CO2 laser cautery while Amy was under general anesthesia. Amy, like most laser patients, experienced very little post-treatment scarring—which makes open-toed shoes a reality.
For six weeks post-surgery, Amy wore a surgical shoe, which looks like an open running shoe, to help her recover. She was not allowed to do any flexion motion with her foot for those six weeks, and she developed cramps in her calf from walking on her toes. The surgical site is still “slightly tender” to the touch, but otherwise she suffers no pain.
Although her plantar warts have been eradicated, they leave a legacy: Amy has to throw out all of her shoes so she does not re-infect herself. She is particularly hesitant to get rid of a pair of red shoes because her sister got her a matching bag for Christmas. “I can spray them with a bleach solution and Lysol and leave them out in the sun for a couple of days, and if they survive that then they’ll be okay to wear.”
