Acid? The normal treatment is liquid nitrogen, which sure does produce "smoke". And instant-freezes and kills the wart.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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Actually salicylic acid is the most often used treatment, they freeze the wart only in bad cases, because it's more painful and leaves scars.
My experience is the exact opposite. Clean and pain free with nitrogen, lots of issues with salicylic acid. No scars with either.
She called it acid. I forgot which one exactly though. It was in standard glass "medical" bottle, so it was acid and not liquid nitrogen. And I felt hot and pain, not cold or nothing.
Internet says it was most probably HNO₃ as most widely used acid for this purpose in my country.
That is really powerful, the one I know doctors use is salicylic acid. It's used in a lot of screencare items, isn't that strong and doesn't damage your cells as much. There is a mix of salicylic acid with some wasp toxins that work by separating the wart cells from your cells.
But it does take multiple applications across months. So maybe nitric acid is used to finish it off in one go, but it does seem extreme
The doctor said to come back in 2 weeks, nothing I should do with the wound except for keeping it covered with... sticky bandage? Don't know what it is called in English.
Nitric acid
Is this your doctor and was this the medical bottle she used?
When she said it was acid, OK. Salicylic acid then probably.
Extreme cold feels the same as extreme heat. But if it was just in a regular glass, prob acid yeah
According to Wikipedia, there are several ways to treat a Plantar wart, including liquid nirogen, and salicylic acid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_wart
I had warts on my hands 40 years ago. I'll mention the duct tape method, because I think I have an idea of how it works, because it does work sometimes. The duct tape focuses our attention on the wart, and the body then focuses its immune system on the wart. It's related to how placebos work, I believe, which is also not well understood. We tend to treat our bodies as stupid machines--just a big bag of chemicals we can push around with drugs and knives--when it comes to health, but our minds have control over our bodies, and we should learn more about how that works, it seems terribly under-studied.
The duct tape, or other cover methods soften the skin, it seems to keep the sweat/moisture in that area. Like if you've ever stayed in a pool way to long and your finger and toes prune up, it eventually reaches a point where you can easily tear a piece of skin off easily
Big fan of mental techniques for body control. I think the next stage of placebo tech is chaos magic.
[searches: “chaos magic”] >>> {mind blown}
Do this all the time and thought it was just me being s m r t: “Guided by the pragmatic ethos of "if it works, use it; if it doesn't, drop it," chaos magicians borrow freely from any available system, including science, pop culture, psychology, and various world religions.”
Oh boy, get ready to have your mind blown again! You're about to read a political manifesto that integrates chaos magic's underlying principles into global politics! https://soulism.net/
That was quite a read to get down to “Belief in magic that you can control for yourself will make you better able to command your own perceptions. It is a placebo, nothing more and nothing less.”. Phew.
But interesting and relatable. More codified, if that’s even an acceptable way to describe the overview, than the perspective I have been evolving for myself. But some convergence there.
This conversation diverges significantly from the thrust of the original discussion. While an enjoyable divergence for me, apologies to those who came for a focused discussion of wart removal methodology. 😉
It's a bit more than that. I genuinely believe that realism is the fundamental underlying ideology of the world's many bigotries. The workers need to take magic back from the rich.
Duct tape method works by suffocating the cells affected by the virus. The virus affected cells are already being isolated by your immunity system (why you have wart/callus) and it's trying to restrict oxygen/food supplied to it through blood. The core of the wart (or root I think it's called) needs air, so when you cover it, it tried to get closer to the surface instead of trying yo dig deeper.
When you combine the duct tape method with occasional scrapping of the skin and cleaning it, you can slowly get it off of you. Or sometime your immunity can do a better job during that situation and that slight push is enough to kill it off. That's why it's not guaranteed to work, but sometimes it works. And something you should try before using acid and other methods
Interesting photo for the wiki on warts
Over 50 years ago my doctor would remove my warts with a soldering iron. He would freeze it then burn it all away. Now the doctors scam you, they freeze it a bit and then make you come back again and again so they make more money instead of removing it all at once.
I did a lot of wart removals. My method worked well enough I never had a repeat patient.
I'd make a ring of surgical lube around the wart to protect the surrounding skin and tell them "Let me know when it's too cold to bear." I'd hit it with a liquid nitrogen bottle until they say stop. Wait a minute, repeat. I'd do about 5 rounds right there and they never came back to see me.
Nice. Good to hear there are still some honest doctors out there.
Doing it in increments reduces scarring, old man. Not everything is a conspiracy.
Can also do it at home with an over the counter kit if you want it cheaper, worked for me.
Then why did my old doctor do it all at once. Also I asked my GP if it was a scam as I used to get it done in one shot. He agreed there was no need to go many times.
As I said, young man (not sure why we need identifiers but I will play along). I asked my GP and he said 1 shot is fine. He even agreed that after the 5th time it was getting ridiculous. That particular doctor was scamming. Oh and wart was on the bottom of my foot so who cares about scarring.
Wow. If I have them again, will try that at home. Thanks.
Whew, acid is kinda overkill lol.
It's done sometimes, though rarely here in the US. It works, but compared to nitrogen it's more destructive and prone to infection. Not horribly higher rates of infection, but because the tissue is less even compared to nitrogen, it's got more nooks and crannies for bacteria to get into.
That being said, in terms of effectiveness, it's solid.
Not dull
clickbait lol
*what it's called in English.