Little Red Warts on Hands and Fingers

Do you have small red bumps or warts on your hands and fingers? The most likely culprit is the flat wart, but it may also be a common wart, or even a cyst or other type of growth.

Flat warts

Flat warts are most likely to develop on the face, hands, legs. They are very small and can be white, pink, or red colored. As the name suggests, flat warts have a flat top with a smooth texture. There are usually many of them clumped together in a certain area, sometimes in a linear pattern.

It is common for them to appear in places that are shaved frequently, such as a woman’s legs and a man’s face. The HPV virus, which causes warts, enters the skin through a cut which is why they may appear in a linear pattern along a cut or scratch mark that has since healed.

The defining features of a flat wart are their very small size, flat top, and the large number of them that may develop in one place. Flat warts will usually disappear on their own after a few months, as the immune system fights off the virus.

Common warts

Common warts usually appear on the hands, fingers, feet, and toes. In other words, they are most likely to develop in locations that frequently touch surfaces and foreign objects that may be contaminated with the HPV virus. The virus is highly contagious and is contracted either directly from infected people or from touching an object touched or used by an infected person, such as a razor.

Common warts are fleshy or red in color and are larger than flat warts. They may have the look of a small stock of cauliflower, and they can grow quite quickly. These warts will usually not go away on their own, and will require treatment in order to get rid of them.

Treating red warts on your hands or fingers

To encourage the disappearance of flat warts, maintain a healthy lifestyle that encourages the healthy functioning of the immune system, and avoid unhealthful activities like smoking or excessive drinking. Eat a healthy diet with a wide variety of nutrients and vitamins.

With common warts, I recommend as the first course of treatment an application of salicylic acid, which is available over-the-counter in many different brand names. You can buy it as a patch that you place over the wart, or it also comes as a liquid that you can dab onto the top of the wart.

Over-the-counter treatment works well for the majority of warts but takes several applications in order to get the job done. You will have to file down the skin on the top of the wart after each application, until the wart is completely removed. There is always the risk that it will grow back with any wart, however.

If this doesn’t work, there is a process of wart removal that utilizes a liquid nitrogen base in order to burn the wart off of your hand. You will have to go to the doctor to get this done, however.