Other stories of DIY surgery
have reminded me of my own little..... amputations.

There was the ingrowing toenail, of course, but that wasn't too far gone and resulted in only a agonised 10 minutes with a craft knife and a fair amount of lime green pus. Lovely.

But then came the wartinator.

It was on the thumb of my right hand. It started off small, just a little bump, really, and I only really noticed it as I had almost no feeling in that part of my thumb. As it grew, I decided it wasn't just a patch of rough skin and began the 100 years war to get rid of it.

I started with a tin of Wartner, as you do. One application will remove the wart, it proudly claimed on the tin. 2 tins, 10 applications per tin later and I booked an appointment for my GP to freeze the bugger off.

It did not work.

The thing could not be bargained with. It could not be reasoned with. It didn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and it absolutely would not stop.... EVER. Until I was dead. Or at least warty.

By now, it had started bringing friends to the party. Two more sprang out on the index and middle finger of my left hand, next to the nail. A fourth began erupting on the back of my middle finger on the right hand. Things were getting serious now...... my job entailed having my hands in dirty water which I believe may have been where I got the buggers from, but these swine would not die! The old favourite was brought into play..... the craft knife, comlete with new, sterilised blade. Blood and skin went a flying, but to no avail, I had not the stomach to cut deep enough. Another tin of wartner fell under their blades with no effect. I even tried a DIY freezing operation, holding the little blighter on a bar in the freezer til it went white. Not a good idea, I know, but they were getting unsightly. They just grinned.

I swear, they were laughing at me.

I decided to try some compound W from the chemists. My dear old Mum, bless her, went in for it for me, and I just managed to remind her in time that it was compound W, not preperation H, she was buying for her son ("Yes, that's him in the car. They're driving him mad, he can't get rid of them" oof that was close.... she did eventually embarrass me in a similar way though but that's a different QOTW :P)

It didn't work.

However, a rather unlikely remedy was suggested to me by my auntie. Wrap them in electrical tape. Hah! There's no way that will slay these monsters, they'll eat the tape up and spit it out, thought I. So I went for the double whammy...... large dollop of compound W, followed by immediate wrapping in black electrical tape.

After a week of looking like a cheap remake of "The Crow", the beasts were felled! It seemed that the compound W melted the tape over the warts, increasing the air-tightiness of the seal and suffocating the little blighters to death!

Victory!
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 18:46, 4 replies)

Warts are evil
I had them on most of my fingertips. Even now, about 15 years after they finally left, my little fingernail on my right hand grows at 45 degrees to where it is supposed to due to the mangling it did.
( bloobloo, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 18:51, closed)

Middle finger on my left hand is the same
the nail goes all wonky where the 2nd "son of wartinator" sprang up.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 18:53, closed)

I miss my warts....
They made me feel speshial.
( girlinthehole, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 19:49, closed)

I hates them I do!
My son got one on his foot, being a small tyke I didn't want to go cutting at it so did some research on the interwebs. Duct tape and sulphur and salycilic acid.

Hmm says I.. now my sons fave color is red so we bought some special red duct tape. Bought some powdered sulphur, got some uncoated asprin and crushed a few of them, some alcohol.

Mixed a poultice of sulphur/asprin and alcohol and put it on the wart. slap on a nice big bit of duct tape and sent him to bed. Next night the same routine. After a few days the top of the wart was decidedly white and deadish. Took the tweezers and give the whole area a squib of alcohol and started tugging. Peeled off a layer of skin to reveal a sort of strange landscape. small blood vessels were pointing up (but they were dead too) but the bastard wart had commanded blood vessels to grow inside it which explains why they bleed so. I tugged on one and it came out, about 1/8" long.. pulled them all out (It doesn't hurt daddy) and washed it down and re-applied the poultice.

Next day give it a shot with the pumice and grind it down till it gets to fresh skin, find a few more dead blood vessels tug 'em out, clean and reapply.

After a couple of weeks there was a hole and the flesh in the hole looked pretty normal except it didn't bleed. At this point I thought I had killed it so we put a bit of antiseptic on it and a plaster and left it at that. the hole got smaller and smaller and eventually was just a pink spot. which went away.. and it didn't come back... well not on him anyway!

I must have gotten some of the virus on my hands during the treatment so I got one on my finger.. sod that! I went after it with extreme vengeance.. cutting, digging, grinding with emery cloth, poultice and more of the same. I got rid of mine in a couple of weeks too.

Oh did I mention I HATE WARTS.

L
(Lurkaloid awarded wanking black belt on, Tue 8 Apr 2008, 3:20, closed)