Herbal Health Information on Warts and Verrucas

I am going to talk about Warts in general not specific types.

These are caused by the Pappiloma virus. The raised nodules of skin produced by this virus infection are called warts everywhere on the body except on the feet where they are called verrucas, all the same thing though.

A healthy human has virus and bacteria fighting ingredients in the normal skin secretions giving us a certain amount of protection to external invading organisms.

However we now wash our skin secretions off constantly through showering and hand washing which makes our skin more vulnerable to these organisms.

I guess it is useless to say try to wash less, so instead my approach is to build up the immune system internally so that the other body defences can fight off the invaders.

High doses of Vitamin C and Echinacea do the trick internally.

It is one of very few times I would advocate taking a Vitamin C tablet (at least 500mg strength). I have known very stubborn Verrucas which were about to go under the knife fall out after a couple of weeks of taking high doses of Vitamin C.

Echinacea is the all rounder for stimulating the immune system, especially the phagocytic cells which chomp up invading organisms.

When we lived in Slough I had a plant called Greater Celandine growing in my garden. Greater celandine also grew wild all around Berkshire and I am sure it had seeded itself in the garden as it is not a common garden plant.

The juice from the freshly picked stem of the greater Celandine is placed directly on the wart and works very like the orthodox silver nitrate. It is almost a magic cure but sadly only available if the fresh plant is around.

However, Thuja also has anti wart properties as it stops the growth of any abnormal cells. Thuja tincture can be dropped directly on to the Warts or Verrucas twice a day until it has cleared up. You are going to say “how long ?” well it depends on how long they have been there and how deeply they have grown in to the skin, but as a guideline I would say try it for 3 weeks and carry on if you can see the Wart or Verruca is diminishing.

The core of fighting off Warts and Verrucas is the immune system so if you want to know more about that have a look at the article on the immune system in the health section.

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Linda Bostock

Medical Herbalist/Herbal Health Information