Ways Of Treating Genital Warts
Since there is no cure for genital warts it is important to focus on treating genital warts to make them more comfortable to live with. There is little need to choose self-care at home since genital warts typically have no symptoms, but you do need to recognize that genital warts exist. When treating genital warts you should take the necessary precautions to avoid trauma to the area since this can result in bleeding. You should also make sure you don't transmit the disease to your sexual partners. You should also avoid touching the warts since they are infectious, therefore do not squeeze or pick the warts.
Medical Options
While there is not specific treatment that can eliminate genital warts and prevent them from coming back, you can reduce the chance of blockage or complications by removing genital warts through medical options. However, genital warts may go away on their own after about three to four months in about ten to twenty percent of people.
One medical option is cryotherapy which freezes the warts using liquid nitrogen. This is an excellent first-line treatment for treating genital warts and the response rates are high with few side effects. Another option is electrodesiccation which uses an electric current to destroy the warts. This procedure can be done in the doctors office with local anesthesia, but the resulting smoke plume can be infectious.
The final medical option is laser treatment. This option for treating genital warts is often used when there is extensive or recurrent genital warts. The procedure sometimes requires local, regional or general anesthesia. A laser is used to physically destroy the wart. However, the disadvantages of this option are the high cost, increased healing time, scarring and potentially infectious viral particles that can be released into the air by the laser plume.
Surgery Options
Surgery can be used to cut away the warts and it is often done as an office procedure with local anesthesia. This option for treating genital warts is typically only used when they are small in size and number. This treatment technique has the highest success rate with the lowest recurrence rate. The success rates for this treatment method is 63 to 91 percent.
Outlook
Most of the time after treating genital warts they will come back even with a good initial response and in some cases the genital warts won't even respond to treatment. Often the recurrence rates are over fifty percent within one year of treatment. Most of the recurrence has been linked to several factors including recurrent infection from sexual partner, a long incubation time of HPV, the persistence of the virus in the nearby skin, hair follicle or sites that missed treatment and lesions that are deep or undetected.