• Question: Do you know why duct tape helps to reduce plantar warts?

    Asked by dizzyg12 to Susan, Rachel on 12 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Rachel Dakin

      Rachel Dakin answered on 12 Nov 2013:

      oohhh interesting. I remember some people putting duct tape on veruccas when I was younger. To be honest I don’t think there’s anything ‘scientific’ that the duct tape does. I would guess it just stops the infection spreading and contains the verucca. I think you have to leave it on for quite a while so keeping it protected may just slightly shorten the healing time.

      If duct tape has magic properties though I’d like to know about it!

    • Photo: Susan Skelton

      Susan Skelton answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Interesting question! I had to think about this one…

      Does the duct tape actually help to reduce plantar warts? It is hard to know if it helps without doing an experiment on lots of people! Sometimes we can think something has helped us get better, when the problem would have got better anyway, all by itself.

      This is why scientists have to use a good scientific method to be as sure as they can be whether or not a treatment works. Usually they will find lots of people with a disease and then treat half of them to find out if more people got better in the group that received the medicine or the group that didn’t.

      I don’t think anyone has proved scientifically that duct tape helps to treat plantar warts. But it is probably helpful to use it to cover up plantar warts as that would stop someone else from catching them!

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