Warts aren't the end of the world, but they can be an an­noy­ance. Luck­i­ly, a num­ber of home reme­dies ex­ist, as well as mi­nor med­ical care op­tions, to take care of warts. In ad­di­tion, there are a num­ber of things you can do to pre­vent get­ting warts (or spread­ing them). The fol­low­ing are some pop­u­lar op­tions:

Make sure it's a wart

First and fore­most, be­fore you try any type of treat­ment, know whether your skin erup­tion is a wart or an­oth­er con­di­tion. Warts (ex­cept the small, smooth flat wart) com­mon­ly have a bro­ken sur­face filled with tiny red dots. Some peo­ple mis­tak­en­ly call these dots seeds, when in re­al­i­ty they are the blood ves­sels that are sup­ply­ing the wart.

Moles, on the oth­er hand, are usu­al­ly smooth, reg­u­lar­ly shaped bumps that are not flesh-coloured (as flat warts can be). A rough and tough patch that has the lines of the skin run­ning through it may be a corn or a cal­lus.

There is al­so a chance that the le­sion could be skin can­cer. You may be able to recog­nise skin can­cer by its ir­reg­u­lar bor­ders and colours. When in doubt, see your doc­tor. In ad­di­tion, if you have di­a­betes, cir­cu­la­tion prob­lems, or im­paired im­mu­ni­ty, do not try any home ther­a­py for wart re­moval. See your doc­tor.

Wait them out

Warts can take a long time to go away, but most will, if you wait long enough. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, they al­so have a ten­den­cy to re­cur. Doc­tors aren't sure why, but some spec­u­late that the "moth­er" wart sheds "ba­bies" in­to the sur­round­ing skin. And some peo­ple seem to have a sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to warts. Adults get warts less fre­quent­ly than chil­dren do, but warts in adults take longer to go away.

Talk to your doc­tor

Doc­tors can zap warts with a laser, burn or freeze them, or give you top­i­cal med­ica­tions that might do the trick. You can pay a pret­ty pen­ny for these med­ical treat­ments, but if your warts are painful or mul­ti­ply­ing rapid­ly, you may want to go the med­ical route.

Don't touch

The wart virus can spread from you to oth­ers, and you can al­so keep re­in­fect­ing your­self. The virus de­vel­ops in­to a wart by first find­ing its way in­to a scratch in the skin's sur­face-a cut or a hang­nail or oth­er wound, for in­stance. Even the every­day task of shav­ing can spread the flat warts on a man's face. In­ad­ver­tent­ly cut­ting a wart as you trim your cu­ti­cles can cause an in­fec­tion.

So keep the virus's trav­els to a min­i­mum by not touch­ing your warts at all, if pos­si­ble. If you do come in con­tact with the le­sions, wash your hands thor­ough­ly with soap and hot wa­ter. Chil­dren should al­so be told that pick­ing or chew­ing their warts can cause them to spread.

Stick to it

Doc­tors have known for years that ad­he­sive tape is an ef­fec­tive treat­ment for warts that's cheap and doesn't leave scars. In fact, a 2002 study found that tape ther­a­py elim­i­nat­ed warts about 85 per cent of the time, com­pared to a stan­dard med­ical treat­ment us­ing liq­uid ni­tro­gen, which was on­ly suc­cess­ful on 60 per cent of warts. Re­searchers in this study used duct tape, but plain old ad­he­sive tape seems to work, too.

Try this: Wrap the wart com­plete­ly with four lay­ers of tape. Be sure the wrap is snug, but not too tight. Leave the tape on for six and a half days. Then re­move the tape for half a day. You may need to re­peat the pro­ce­dure for about three to four­weeks be­fore the wart dis­ap­pears. You can try the pro­ce­dure on a plan­tar wart, but be sure to use strips of tape that are long enough to prop­er­ly se­cure the ad­he­sive.

Take pre­cau­tions with over-the-counter (OTC) prepa­ra­tions

The Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FDA) has ap­proved wart-re­moval med­ica­tions made with 60 per cent sal­i­cylic acid, but most com­mon OTC reme­dies con­tain 17 per cent. While the stronger for­mu­las may work well for adults (ex­cept for those who have sen­si­tive skin), they are not rec­om­mend­ed for chil­dren. Sal­i­cylic acid works be­cause it's an ir­ri­tant, so no mat­ter which strength of so­lu­tion you use, try to keep it from ir­ri­tat­ing the sur­round­ing skin. If you're us­ing a liq­uid med­ica­tion, do this by smear­ing a ring of pe­tro­le­um jel­ly around the wart be­fore us­ing the med­ica­tion. If you're ap­ply­ing a med­icat­ed wart pad or patch, cut it to the ex­act size and shape of the wart. Ap­ply OTC med­ica­tions be­fore bed and leave the area un­cov­ered.

Don't go bare­foot

Warts leak virus par­ti­cles by the mil­lions, so go­ing shoe­less puts you at risk for ac­quir­ing a plan­tar, or foot, wart. The best pro­tec­tion: footwear. Lock­er rooms, pools, pub­lic or shared show­ers, even the car­pets in ho­tel rooms har­bour a host of virus­es-not just wart virus­es.