How to Get Rid of a Wart on Your Hand or Finger

Warts are spread by a virus called the human papilloma virus, or HPV. If broken or cut skin makes direct contact with HPV, a wart can gain entry there and begin to grow.  Our feet and hands are constantly touching foreign surfaces throughout the day and because of this, the hands and feet are the two most common locations on the body to get a wart.

Little red warts or bumps on the fingers and hands are common.  But getting any wart on the hand or finger can be painful because as we go about our daily activities, there is a good chance we will put pressure on the wart and irritate it.

Remove the wart when you first notice it, before it has time to grow

One of the keys to removing the wart is killing it early, before it has time to really take root in your skin and grow.  This is when it’s easiest and least painful to get rid of the wart.   In order to successfully remove a wart, the entire root must be extracted or else it will likely grow back again.

The longer a wart is allowed to remain on the skin, the deeper the root will grow and you may find that after removal, it keeps growing back over and over again.  Treat it early in its life cycle and you have the greatest odds of success.

Salicylic acid is very effective for getting rid of warts on the hand and fingers

The first thing product you will want to try is a chemical called salicylic acid, which is available in several over-the-counter medications you can find at your local drugstore.  Just go to the section with wart removal products and look on the ingredients label to check for it in the active ingredients.  Most OTC medicines for wart removal use salicylic acid. If you are unsure, simply ask the pharmacist and he will guide you in the right direction. Or, you may look at the product comparison table at the bottom of the page and order the product online.

Salicylic acid products usually come in liquid form and the bottle will have a applicator that you can use to apply it directly to the wart.  Clean your hands and the wart thoroughly and then dry.  Apply the acid over the entire wart and allow to dry which will take five or 10 min.  You may also put a second or third layer over the first, as much of the liquid will evaporate.

The acid will kill the surface of the skin on the wart after several hours, and then you will want to using emery board to file away the dead skin.  You will likely have to repeat this process several times in order to remove all of the flesh in the wart.  It is a messy process, and the wart will likely bleed as you file it down.

The reason I recommend salicylic acid as the first line of treatment for warts on the hand is because it is effective about 75% of the time in getting rid of the wart for good.  But the other 25% of the time, the wart will keep growing back and you will have to resort to stronger measures to get rid of it.

A doctor can freeze or burn the wart off of your finger or hand with liquid nitrogen

For stubborn warts that won’t go away, a a professional may be needed. A dermatologist is the kind of doctor who specializes in removing warts. The  most effective way to get rid of the wart is to have it removed through cryosurgery, which is the process of applying liquid nitrogen to the wart in order to freeze the skin cells and kill it.  It may take two applications of the liquid nitrogen to get the job done, but this is the most assured way to get rid of the wart. I recommend you try an over-the-counter product first because it usually works.

Homeopathic treatment for warts

If you are inclined to try a natural method, thuja occidentalis is outstanding for treating warts. Thuja is an oil extracted from an evergreen tree that can be applied directly to the wart to burn it off. Thuja products taken orally help to stimulate and strengthen the bodies immune system, which fights the HPV virus from within. If you are interested in using thuja for your wart, please read my detailed article about it at the link.