An unpleasant surprise for every mom will be the appearance of a wart on the child's leg. You can get an infection almost everywhere. The skin of the feet of babies is quite soft and tender. This contributes to the rapid spread of warts on the sole of the foot.
What causes?
The disease is infectious in nature. Plantar warts are caused by human papillomavirus. This infection easily enters the body and spreads rapidly through the bloodstream. Human papillomaviruses severely damage epithelial cells, which leads to the appearance of various warts on the skin.
Usually, infection occurs by contact-household method. Toddlers who attend kindergarten can become infected with warts much faster.
Violation of the rules of personal hygiene contributes to the penetration of infection into the child's body. The kid can also become infected by attending sports clubs. Often, warts occur in children who are engaged in the pool.
Not all babies develop the disease.
There is no genetic predisposition to this disease. Only with a congenital infection with the human papillomavirus can warts appear in newborns. The majority of cases were registered in children aged 8-14 years. They usually become infected after contact with a child who has warts on the skin.
Several factors affect the appearance of warts in a child:
Initial level of immunity. Children who are often ill or immunocompromised are more prone to infection. A weakened immune system is simply unable to cope with the virus. This leads to the rapid development of infection inside the child's body and the appearance of adverse symptoms.
Chronic diseases. Babies with diabetes are at greater risk of developing warts on their legs and feet. This is due to the peculiarity of impaired blood flow and innervation in the lower extremities in type 2 diabetes.
Excessive sweating of the feet contributes to the more rapid development of plantar warts in babies.
Wearing the wrong shoes can cause warts on your toes. This occurs as a result of excessive pressure of the shoe on certain areas of the foot. If the product is made of a material with poor air permeability, then the risk of warts also increases several times.
Psycho-emotional stress and severe stress. These factors often lead to the development of wasting. It, in turn, helps to reduce the level of immunity, which causes easier infection with the human papillomavirus.
What does it look like?
Plantar warts are often multiple. Typically, one item appears first. After a while, if no treatment has been carried out, the number of warts increases several times. The first growths usually appear near the fingers or in places of excessive pressure - on the tubercles, which are located below the toes.
In most cases, the warts are found on the soles. But there may also be growths on the dorsum of the feet. They are usually dark or gray in color. Some varieties of plantar warts may be brown in color. On the periphery of the formations - pronounced desquamation.
Warts on the feet usually rise slightly above the surface of the skin and are fairly convex. In some babies, they may be flat. The size of warts ranges from 4-5 mm to 1 cm.In babies at the age of 3, elements of a larger diameter may be found. The size and shape of the warts depends on the subtype of the virus that caused the disease.
The growth is covered with several layers of epithelial cells, which gives it a rather dense texture.
When trying to scrape off the skin layers, it fails. In some cases, capillary bleeding may even occur.
If you look closely, you can see one or more black dots inside each wart. They go deep enough into the underlying layers of the skin.
If excessive friction occurs while walking or wearing improperly fitted shoes, this can lead to injury. This situation often leads to bleeding in the area of the growth and even possible secondary infection. In this case, weakened babies may experience severe inflammation or suppuration.
Diagnostics
If a child has warts on his feet, then he must be shown to a dermatologist. The doctor will conduct the necessary examination and make an accurate diagnosis. Not all skin growths can be treated as warts. Often many plantar elements can also be caused by fungi. Additional tests are required to rule out a fungal infection.
The most common examination is a histological examination. As a rule, for this, the doctor makes a scraping of the skin growth. The resulting material is sent to the laboratory, where the histologist makes an accurate conclusion about the reason for the formation of a growth on the child's skin.
How to cure?
It is imperative to treat warts. Ignoring skin growths in the hope that they will disappear on their own is absolutely not the right tactic. Some parents think warts will go away on their own. Such cases are indeed registered. However, they are very rare.
Treating warts is a task that requires a lot of patience and a positive attitude to achieve results. Many reviews of parents who have treated warts in a child also confirm this. Not all methods lead to a complete cure for this disease the first time. Often you have to resort to re-removing the warts or changing the way to do it.
All types of treatment can be divided into two types:
Moxibustion at home.
Therapy in medical institutions.
Moxibustion at home
In order to remove warts from the skin, there is a huge variety of tips. Many of them really help to eliminate growths, and it is even dangerous to use other recommendations.
It is quite difficult to remove warts from the skin at home.
When choosing a method to remove a wart, keep in mind that baby's skin is very sensitive to any chemicals. Often, babies under the age of three have severe burns.
Most often in home practice, for cauterization and elimination of warts, they use:
Celandine. The juice of this medicinal plant is perfect for this purpose. Decoctions made from pharmaceutical raw materials are less effective. It is best to do this treatment in the summer when flowering plants can be found. The juice flowing out when cutting celandine has a strong cauterizing effect on warts. The method can be used for several weeks until the effect is achieved.
The use of antiviral ointments. A 5% tebrofen ointment is suitable. It is usually prescribed for 10-14 days. The biologically active components included in the composition have a detrimental effect on human papillomaviruses. Usually, the positive effect occurs after 2 weeks from the beginning of use.
Medicines with a cauterizing effect. These include "Supercleaner" or "Feresol". These drugs should only be used on the affected areas. Gradually, areas of the skin are cleansed and look healthy.
- Keratolytic plasters. They contain active ingredients that can cause a chemical reaction on the skin. This leads to increased desquamation and more active desquamation of epithelial cells. Such plasters are used only on damaged areas. Usually 3-4 procedures are prescribed.
Treatment in medical institutions
In some cases, and especially with a running process, it is not possible to eliminate warts at home. Doctors-dermatologists can help parents, who remove growths from the skin and carry out a set of all the necessary therapy.
Among the medical methods for eliminating warts are as follows:
Cryodestruction. In this case, the growths are burned out from the skin surface with liquid nitrogen. The procedure can be quite painful. With extensive injuries on the feet, cryodestruction can be very uncomfortable for the child. However, the effectiveness of this method is very high. As a rule, the growths are removed from the skin the first time.
Laser excision. The rays produced by the laser penetrate into all layers of the skin. This allows even the deepest warts to be removed. After this method, small scars may remain, which often go away on their own.
Surgical removal. It is used only in limited cases when all other methods of treatment are ineffective. The surgeon removes formations from the skin with a scalpel and surgical instruments. Your baby is given local anesthesia before the procedure.
Plantar warts should be treated as soon as the first signs of the disease appear. Only timely removal will prevent the rapid multiplication of these elements on the feet. Plantar formations are very effectively cured.
You will learn more about warts from the program of Dr. Komarovsky.
