Coping with...WARTS

These small skin lumps are caused by a virus, which can take months or years to go away

- Dr Gill Jenkins

There are many types of wart virus, some affect the skin, others the genital area.

Spread by close skin contact or from contaminated wet surfaces – such as at swimming pools if someone walks around with an uncovered verruca – it takes weeks for the wart to appear. The virus invades the skin, causing painless lumps singly or in groups, anywhere on the body, but usually the fingers or hands, or verrucas on the feet, which press inward, making walking painful. Other types of warts include round, flat, yellowish ‘plane warts’ and ‘mosaic warts’. A totally different group of papillomavirus causes genital warts.

Usually, warts look like ragged ’florets’, are 1-5mm wide, and may occur in clusters. The small black dots in the middle are blood vessels.

Warts are usually harmless, painless and, if you’re happy to leave untreated, eventually vanish when the body develops immunity, although this can take months or years. They may feel a bit sore or itchy and can be embarrassing if obvious.

Anaesthetic and dementia

Surgery in later life holds known risks, but concerns that having general anaesthetic during surgery could increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease have been settled by a study of nearly 8,000 elderly patients. The study compared exposure to general anaesthetic versus regional anaesthetic during elective surgery. Researchers found no difference in the risk for individuals who received either anaesthesia.

UTI TREATMENT