Tips on Getting Rid of Lip Warts

Warts are a common skin condition caused by a type of human papillomavirus infection, or HPV 1. Warts can occur anywhere on the body, in different shapes and sizes. One common type of wart that occurs on the skin is a filiform wart. Filiform warts often occur on the face, including around the lips. If you're dealing with a lip wart, there are several way that you can approach treatment to help remove the wart 4.

Salicylic Acid

Many commercial, over-the-counter wart removers are successful at helping to remove filiform warts from the face and lips. Most of these products contain the active ingredient salicylic acid. When applied to the wart, salicylic acid breaks down the keratin proteins in the wart tissue, causing the outer layer of the wart to be more easily removed. Over time, this wears the wart down until it is no longer on the skin. The American Academy of Family Physicians recommends putting salicylic acid on every day, right after you take a shower, as the salicylic acid penetrates the wart better with recently dampened skin 3.

Physical Removal

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Warts can also be removed around the lips through physical procedures at your doctor's office. For example, your doctor can use a scalpel or scissors to physically cut the wart off of your skin where the wart meets the surface of your skin tissue. A currete can also be used to remove the wart in a procedure called curettage. With any physical procedure, there is a small chance of a scar developing in the area the wart was removed.

Liquid Nitrogen

Lip warts may also be frozen off using a cryotherapy procedure. In this treatment, your doctor will carefully apply liquid nitrogen to the wart, causing a blister to form on the tissue below the wart 4. As the blister falls off, the wart will fall off with it. Although there are at-home kits available for freezing warts, due to the proximity of the wart to your mouth, you should talk to your doctor before using such products on a lip wart.

Laser

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A newer procedure for wart removal is laser wart removal. During this procedure, an intense beam of laser light is aimed at the wart. The energy from the laser destroys the wart tissue, allowing it to be removed from your lip. Talk to your doctor about this removal option as it may not be available in all areas, depending on the equipment available to your physician.