Verrucae are a benign virus that do not cause any harm. One could even argue that they do not actually need treating. They can be painful and unsightly, and these would be good reasons to treat a verruca.

There are many treatments available for verrucae, including doing nothing, however for painful lesions, or those lesions that have been hanging around a while: verruca needling can be an excellent treatment option.

Using local anaesthetic, either the area where the lesion is or the whole of the foot will be numbed. Lesions in the forefoot are numbed from the top of the foot and lesions under the heel or arch will be numbed at the ankle, meaning that the whole foot is made numb. Alternative options are available if the whole foot cannot be made numb for safety reasons (stability or needing to drive etc).

The lesion is then punctured multiple times and wrapped in a large dressing to keep the region clean and infection free. The procedure is quick - taking only 5-10 minutes and the time allocated is often as little as 30 minutes and rarely more than an hour (the number and size of lesions are a factor for this).

My patients have often found Swift (microwave therapy) to be very painful as well as expensive, and as a result have opted for needling if they have not had partial / total resolution within a set number of sessions - usually no more than five.

I can however offer: Debridement, curettage, cryosurgery, caustics, Swift and needling.