Duct tape Rx redux

In early June, I posted about a new use of Duct Tape of which I had not been aware. Well, it hasn't worked out so well, so we took our 4 1/2 year-old to the doctor today to have it removed.

When we told him we were taking him to the doctor, he wasn't too happy. He remembered the last visit, which involved shots. We told him there would be no shots today, yet neglected to tell him there would be some pain involved, as we expected to have to have a freezing procedure to remove the "bump," as he calls it.

As it turns out, the doctor recommended a liquid that would blister the skin and remove it somehow. But first, she had to scrape some dead skin with a blade, which was somewhat uncomfortable for him, but not terrible. The blistering is not supposed to happen for a day or so, and that may cause a little pain, but it's better than the freezing procedure.

Plus, we didn't have to lie to him. Although, telling him there would be no shots, and that "this won't hurt" when the liquid was applied, does seem a little like a lie. After all, it will hurt somewhat at some point, and that is really all a kid cares about when asking about shots at a visit to the doctor.

Aside from the fallibility of duct tape, I also learned that it is nearly impossible to find out online whether wart removal is covered by insurance, unless you have the policy manual (I misplaced it). We'll see if Anthem covers it after the fact, but if not, we'll at least get to use our flexible spending account money. We're in danger of having to stock up on ibuprofen in late December in order to use it up.

Duct tape: It really can do anything

We took our four-year-old to the doctor today to look at what appeared to be a wart growing on his foot. Actually, his "Mema" took him, at her insistence, and it pains me to admit I'm glad she did.

It is indeed a wart (we had hoped it was merely a corn), and my wife and I had a brief discussion about whether it is a Plantar wart. She said because it is on the bottom of his foot, it is by definition a Plantar wart. I disagreed in my head, kept my mouth shut, Googled it later, learned to my satisfaction I was right, and continued to keep my mouth shut.

From http://www.howtodothings.com/:

"Plantar warts often appear near the balls of the foot or around the heel (essentially, the places that most likely made contact with the virus in the first place). You can feel the lump of a plantar wart as you walk, but when you look at it, the wart appears surprisingly flat. Due to their location on the body, plantar warts grown inward as opposed to outward. As a result, the wart won't look like a wart on someone's face. A plantar wart feels like a callus because it's covered in callus tissue due to the frequent pressure of walking. Often the planter wart will appear darkly discolored, sometimes with the appearance of a small black core (which is a blood clot, not any physical materialization of the virus itself)."

So yes, a Plantar wart does appear on the bottom of the foot, but exhibits no likeness to the wart my son has. His is outward-growing and has none of the small black cores explained above, which I once experienced in my early twenties.

What I did not expect to learn was the home remedy for it: duct tape. It kills the virus I guess, and eventually the wart goes away. It is supposed to work for "real" Plantar warts, too. I was very glad to know my son didn't have to have it frozen off, for his sake and mine, as I'm not sure my insurance covers the procedure.

I used a daily regimen of a prescription cream, Band-Aids, and a razor blade to remove mine back in the late '80s. It was kind of gross and creepy to self-mutilate my way to a wart-free foot. It was a lot cheaper than freezing the warts off, but it was no match for duct tape.