Painful Plantar Warts? Get Fast, Effective Treatment in North Seattle

 Don’t let stubborn plantar warts steal your comfort, confidence, and freedom.

Does this sound like you?

• You're hiding your feet, avoiding pools, beaches, and intimate moments because you're ashamed of how they look

• You experience sharp, burning pain with every step

• You're tired of wasting time and money on home remedies and failed treatments

• You're frustrated because your warts keep coming back.

Let Me Help You!

I understand your frustration. I've been treating plantar warts for over 40 years in Seattle, Washington. I've helped hundreds of people eliminate their embarrassing and painful plantar warts and get back to doing what they love. 

Why Choose Us?

• We were the first office in Seattle to offer Swift® — a revolutionary microwave therapy that treats the cause of warts, Human Papillomavirus (HPV), instead of the wart. 
• We offer treatment that has a less than 1% recurrence rate.
• We provide education to help you prevent warts from coming back.

Your 3-Step Path to Eliminating Plantar Warts 

Step 1: Expert Diagnosis

We'll examine your warts and confirm the best treatment approach. Sometimes we'll take a small sample to rule out other conditions and ensure precise treatment.

Step 2: Offering You Treatment Options Including Swift

We understand you want a choice in how to get your warts treated. While we have the latest, most revolutionary Swift® treatment, we can also use chemicals or surgery to treat your warts directly.

Choosing Swift® for the Elimination of Plantar Warts

In a quick, 2-5 minute session, Swift targets the HPV virus at its source, triggering your body’s natural defenses. Other  benefits of Swift:

• Brief, tolerable discomfort (we also offer options to numb the area)
• No scarring from chemical treatments or surgery
• No downtime - you're free to participate in your usual activities after treatment.
• Warts treated with Swift have less than a 1% recurrence rate.

Learn more about the benefits of Swift here!

Step 3: Stay Wart Free

We'll provide prevention education to keep warts from returning, so you can stay confident and pain-free.

Don't Put Off Treatment

Every day you wait, your warts can:

• Spread to other areas of your feet
• Become more painful and harder to treat
• Multiply and become more embarrassing
• Affect your mobility and quality of life

Don't let plantar warts control your life for another day.

Learn About Plantar Warts and What Causes Them

Plantar warts or verrucas are skin lesions. Plantar means “sole of the foot” giving plantar warts their name. However, you can also get plantar warts on top of your feet and on your toes. Pressure from bearing weight on warts can cause hard callused skin to grow over them. That’s why they are sometimes mistaken for corns or calluses. While warts are harmless, they can also be very painful.

Plantar warts are caused by HPV or the Human Papillomavirus. The virus that causes plantar warts thrives in warm, moist environments. That’s why our shoes, public pools, and locker rooms are a perfect breeding ground for warts. Places where people tend to go barefoot, like yoga, gymnastics, and martial art studios, are also hotbeds for spreading the virus.

Plantar warts are spread by:

• touching
• scratching
• sharing towels
• razors
• other personal items.
• can spread them to other parts of your body as well.

While they are contagious, not everyone who comes into contact with warts will get them.

People most at risk for warts are:

• children
• elderly people
• those with a weakened immune system such as those with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes
• people with recurring cuts, cracks, or scrapes on their feet 

Plantar Wart Symptoms

After exposure to HPV, it can take many months of growth before you’ll notice a wart. Plantar warts that develop on places where you bear weight, such as the ball or heel of the foot, can cause a sharp, burning pain. While pain typically occurs with standing and walking, pressure on the side of a wart can also create intense pain. The number and size of warts can also influence the pain you experience, with increasing pain with greater number and size.

What Do Plantar Warts Look Like?

Plantar warts can vary greatly in their appearance and can appear at the base of the toes, ball of the feet or the heel.

They can show up as:

• Fleshy, rough, grainy lesions
• Hard and flat lesions, with a rough surface and well-defined boundaries
• Gray or brown lesions (but the color may vary), with pinpoints of black in the center

Can't I Treat Warts At Home?

Most people who come to our office have already tried eliminating their warts with over-the-counter or folk remedies--and failed. First, you should only attempt to treat warts at home if you do not have a weakened immune system. Anyone with diabetes or cancer should avoid these remedies. Salicylic acid is the active ingredient in many home remedies for warts. They work by removing layers of the wart a little at a time. Other treatments aim to freeze the wart, but these treatments are flammable.

While in theory, treating your warts at home sounds like a good idea, warts can be very resistant to home treatment and they tend to recur. In addition, at home treatments require daily and often messy application and they can destroy healthy tissue. You can skip all the fuss and muss and come see us instead.

Prevention of Warts

Like any condition that spreads it’s best to avoid the situations that put you at risk. At the very least you can take measures to prevent infection.

To prevent the spread of warts, follow these tips:

• Avoid direct contact with warts from other people or other parts of the body.
• Don't share foot implements such as clippers with someone who has warts, unless you sterilize them with alcohol first.
• Avoid walking barefoot, except on sandy beaches.
• Change your shoes and socks daily.
• Check your children's feet periodically.
• Keep your feet clean and dry.
• Wear flip flops in locker rooms and public showers.
• Bring your own yoga mat to class.
• Talk to the owners of your gymnastic or martial arts center to be sure mats are disinfected on a regular basis. Have your child thoroughly wash their feet after class.
• Wear socks when travelling through airports

FAQs

Why Are Plantar Warts So Hard to Get Rid Of?

Plantar warts are hard to get rid of because they hide from your body’s immune system. Traditional treatments for plantar warts attempt to eliminate the wart directly through a variety of methods including freezing, chemicals, and surgery.

Unfortunately, these methods often fail to eliminate the wart for good because the treatment doesn’t get to the source of the problem—the cause of warts.

Plantar warts are caused by HPV or human papillomavirus. While you can get rid of the wart itself, the virus continues to live in your body. Stress and other factors can play a role in the return of warts.

While traditional treatments are unable to get rid of the human papillomavirus, a new treatment called Swift can. Swift works by using microwave therapy to uncloak the virus making it visible to your immune system. Once your immune system “sees” and “recognizes” the wart it can eliminate it.

Because Swift works to eliminate the virus it’s much more successful in getting rid of warts than other treatments. On top of that, it has a less than 1% recurrence rate which far outpaces other traditional therapies. Those older therapies have a recurrence rate as high as 20%.

Are Plantar Warts Contagious?

Yes, HPV or the virus that causes plantar warts is contagious. The virus thrives in warm, moist environments such as locker rooms, pools, martial arts, and yoga studio where people tend to go barefoot. It can also spread to other parts of the body and to family members through shared towels and nail implements. 

But not everyone who comes into contact with warts, will develop them. People who are at greatest risk of developing plantar warts are:

• children and teenagers
• people with a weak immune system (such as those with Type II diabetes or cancer)
• the elderly
• those who’ve gotten warts before.

If you’re at risk for plantar warts, it’s important to avoid other people who have them, wear flip flops in locker rooms and poolside, and change your shoes and socks daily.

Are Plantar Warts Itchy?

Patient Testimonial

"Dr. Berg's office sent out the information about Swift, a new way of treating plantar warts. I thought, you know what? Let's give it a shot. And in multiple treatments, this plantar wart, which had metastasized into a, what Dr. Berg called, "A vegetable patch" of warts all over the bottom of my foot, eventually went away completely. This hideous group of warts, which had been on my foot literally for 30 or 40 years, was finally gone."

-Rob T.