Tea Tree Oil on Plantar Warts (and other stuff)

When I was a teenager, I had a few Plantar Warts on my foot. I was referred to a dermatologist to have them frozen off with liquid nitrogen. It wasn’t too painful, but I can certainly recall the smarting nerve pain on later visits, as the doctor froze the virus down layer by layer with liquid nitrogen.

The other day, I was discouraged, because got another Plantar Wart. It had been causing me pain for a couple of weeks, but I was in denial.

Not about to go to the dermatologist, I opened my medicine cabinet, brimming with essential oils. I considered clove or oregano, but I didn’t feel like taking the time to dilute them that morning because I was bummed.

I know that Plantars Warts are pretty common. I still think they’re gross. They’re even grosser though because they’re caused by the human papilloma virus, which thanks to the new vaccines, gets an awful lot of negative press.

The truth is, over 120 HPV types have been identified and are referred to by number. The HPV most linked to genital cancers are HPV 16, 18, 31, and 45 and to a lesser degree HPV 33, 35, 39, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 26, 53, 66, 68, 73, and 82. The HPV types that cause Plantar Warts however, are HPV types 1, 2, 4, 63.  So anyway… they’re not the same thing. Plantar Warts are not dangerous at all, though they do hurt, and they are gross.

So, even though the statements I am about to make are not approved by the FDA, Plantar Warts themselves are “self-limiting” so I can freely discuss my awesome victory.

Not wanting to take the extra 15 seconds to dilute an essential oil, I knew I could choose either lavender or tea tree oil. My husband doesn’t like lavender, so I picked tea tree oil, since it was bed time. I put on drop directly on the wart and went to bed.

The next day, the wart was still there, but the pain was gone. So, I kept it up. I put tea tree oil on my toe three times a day. On the fourth day, the wart was gone.

At any rate, I looked it up online in the U.S. National Library of Medicine just to make sure I wasn’t about to feed you guys a bunch of bologna, and it turns out, even the NIH’s site has heard of this. See, read this.

Gotta love the old stand by.

Though, while I was searching through the NIH’s online library…

I couldn’t help but stumble upon another very WAAAAAY more interesting tea tree oil study that I have no comment on at all… (because the FDA’s rules about herbal supplements and non-self-limiting health issues say I don’t.)