Swift Therapy for Plantar Warts

Plantar Warts: The Basics 

To understand wart treatment, you need to start by understanding warts themselves. 

Warts are tiny, raised bumps caused by a viral infection of the uppermost layers of your skin. Although they can appear anywhere on your body, the feet and hands are the most common targets. 

If you look closely, warts usually appear rough, fleshy, and grainy. They disturb the normal “lines” of your skin, and you may even notice one or more black or dark red “dots” in the center of the lesion. (These are clotted blood vessels, not “wart seeds” as is commonly supposed!) 

The viruses that cause warts (strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV) don’t need much of an opening to get in. Any small cut or break in the skin, even if you can’t see or feel it, will do. And because they only infect the uppermost layers of the skin, they usually don’t attract much attention from your immune system. That’s why they can sometimes take years to go away on their own.

What Is Swift Microwave Treatment? 

This is a totally new approach to treating warts that focuses on healing the infection rather than simply cutting out, freezing off, or exposing the wart (and your skin) to harsh chemicals. 

Here’s how it works: 

When you come to our office, we’ll lightly shave off the outer layers of the wart. Don’t worry—this is painless and does not break the skin. 

Next, we’ll apply the Swift microwave therapy. This typically takes under 5 minutes. Some people describe the sensation from the microwave pulse similar to a “fast, hot sensation”, however many others experience no pain at all. Either way, any mild discomfort you might feel will dissipate immediately. As we like to teach our patients, “if you feel the heat then the wart will be beat!” 

What’s actually going on is that the Swift device is heating up water molecules in the outer layers of your skin. The heat and friction generated won’t harm you in any way, but it does attract the attention of your immune system, alerting it to the infection. Once the body “identifies” the viral infection, it’ll begin the process of killing it, which in turn will make the wart disappear. 

Typically, 3-4 sessions spaced out over as many months will give your body more than enough guidance and time to mount an immune response and defeat your wart.