Skin problems health centre

Strange as it might sound, putting duct tape over your wart may help get rid of it. You cut a piece of tape to the same size as your wart and stick it over the wart. You leave the tape on for a week. If it falls off, replace it with another piece as soon as you can. Once a week, you take the tape off and rub away the wart with an emery board or pumice stone. You then start again with a new piece of tape.

In one study, people did this until their wart disappeared or for at least eight weeks. Duct tape helped to get rid of warts for more than 8 in 10 people. This compared with 6 in 10 people who had their wart frozen by a doctor. ^[2]

Although this study shows that duct tape may help some people, the trial was very small. And it didn't look at whether the warts came back. ^[2] Some people found that the tape irritated their skin. Others found it hard to stop the tape falling off.

Two more recent studies (one in adults and one in children) showed that duct tape didn't help. In both studies, about 1 in 5 people got rid of their warts, whether they used duct tape or just padding over the wart. ^{[21] [22]}

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