27 ms·

There seems to be several studies demonstrating that. I can't seem to find anything on why this works. Why is it always duct tape?

by atrus 2y ago

idontwantthis 2y ago
My guess is duct tape doesn’t do anything special to warts but the adhesive and the tight seal causes you to shed a few layers of skin. Repeat for weeks until you have shed all of the wart containing layers and replaced them. Salicylic acid ointment also works much better than cryo therapy. The same idea but probably a lot faster than duct tape, but also probably a bit more painful.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  Compound W sold in the US is basically what you just said.
  - jayknight 2y ago
    And in my experience, the band-aid style treatment worked much better than the kind you brush on. I guess just keeping it in place all day through hand washings, etc was what helped.
  - astura 2y ago
    The active ingredient in Compound W liquid is Salicylic Acid.
loeg 2y ago
I think it's just starving it of oxygen. Duct tape just stays in place well enough. Any tape that doesn't breathe and sticks would do. But maybe I'm wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape_occlusion_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape_occlusion_therapy
- arcticbull 2y ago
  I was under the impression it got its oxygen from the blood. That link seems to suggest some mix of maceration (skin breaking down due to humidity), acting as a keratolytic (causing excess skin growth which mechanically separates the wart) and an immune component. Which makes sense - warts are caused by HPV.
- 1970-01-01 2y ago
  If that were true, those tiny tubes of cyanoacrylate would be sold as wart remover.
  - adolph 2y ago
    It works for chiggers, although if one is sufficiently hirsute the cure may be worse then the disease. https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/threads/super-glue-for-chiggers.175883/ https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/threads/super-glue-for-chigge...
bsder 2y ago
Warts only seem to form when your immune system deems them "below threshold". Presumably, the continuous irritation from the duct tape causes your immune system to say "Oy, there is irritation here. Go find the source and stop it." At some point, your immune systems notices "Hey, there's a virus here that we weren't paying attention to. Let's get rid of that." There are stories of people who talk about how they had a couple of warts and then "something" injured one of them such that blood came out and suddenly all their warts disappeared simultaneously. Presumably their immune system "noticed" and then cleared the virii out systemically.

There seems to be several studies demonstrating that. I can't seem to find anything on why this works. Why is it always duct tape?

by atrus 2y ago

There seems to be several studies demonstrating that. I can't seem to find anything on why this works. Why is it always duct tape?

idontwantthis 2y ago

My guess is duct tape doesn’t do anything special to warts but the adhesive and the tight seal causes you to shed a few layers of skin. Repeat for weeks until you have shed all of the wart containing layers and replaced them. Salicylic acid ointment also works much better than cryo therapy. The same idea but probably a lot faster than duct tape, but also probably a bit more painful.

jjtheblunt 2y ago
Compound W sold in the US is basically what you just said.
- jayknight 2y ago
  And in my experience, the band-aid style treatment worked much better than the kind you brush on. I guess just keeping it in place all day through hand washings, etc was what helped.
- astura 2y ago
  The active ingredient in Compound W liquid is Salicylic Acid.

loeg 2y ago

I think it's just starving it of oxygen. Duct tape just stays in place well enough. Any tape that doesn't breathe and sticks would do. But maybe I'm wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape_occlusion_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape_occlusion_therapy

arcticbull 2y ago
I was under the impression it got its oxygen from the blood. That link seems to suggest some mix of maceration (skin breaking down due to humidity), acting as a keratolytic (causing excess skin growth which mechanically separates the wart) and an immune component. Which makes sense - warts are caused by HPV.
1970-01-01 2y ago
If that were true, those tiny tubes of cyanoacrylate would be sold as wart remover.
- adolph 2y ago
  It works for chiggers, although if one is sufficiently hirsute the cure may be worse then the disease. https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/threads/super-glue-for-chiggers.175883/ https://bushcraftusa.com/forum/threads/super-glue-for-chigge...

bsder 2y ago

Warts only seem to form when your immune system deems them "below threshold". Presumably, the continuous irritation from the duct tape causes your immune system to say "Oy, there is irritation here. Go find the source and stop it." At some point, your immune systems notices "Hey, there's a virus here that we weren't paying attention to. Let's get rid of that." There are stories of people who talk about how they had a couple of warts and then "something" injured one of them such that blood came out and suddenly all their warts disappeared simultaneously. Presumably their immune system "noticed" and then cleared the virii out systemically.