There’s not much to Sex On Wednesday today because it’s been another busy week of kid care, parent care, puppy care, and self-care (if you consider having large needles jabbed into your toes to be self-care).
This probably falls under TMI considering how many of you I’ve never met, but I have stubborn warts on two of my toes. As a sex educator who has talked ad nauseam about HPV, cervical cancer, and the importance of getting vaccinated, I know a thing or two about warts.
The toe kind and the genital kind are caused by different types of HPV (there hundreds of types), but they have similarities. Your body can clear the virus on its own and the warts can just go away (I had a few on my finger in college that did), or a health care provider can treat them with chemicals, cryotherapy (freezing), or surgery.
I went to a podiatrist first who tried treating them with acid. It hurt. And didn’t work. She sent me to a dermatologist.
He said we could try freezing, but he didn’t think that would work any better than the acid, and it would hurt more. He said scooping them out surgically would hurt even more and the warts could come back, or uncomfortable scar tissue could form. He added (unnecessarily in my opinion) that to get the wart on my right foot completely, he’d probably have to take off the whole tip of the middle toe. No thanks.
Then he told me something that I think is super cool because I’m a sex educator who has talked ad nauseam about HPV, cervical cancer, and the importance of getting vaccinated. He said that he’d love to try an experimental treatment that injects the HPV vaccine directly into warts to try to elicit an immune system response. The hope is that the response would be strong because the antigens in the vaccine are so similar to the virus that caused the warts. I immediately looked up the concept and found this recent small study (20 patients) that showed mediocre results (60% cleared the warts entirely and 40% had partial clearing) but cited other articles that were more promising.
As a sex educator who has talked ad nauseam about HPV, cervical cancer, and the importance of getting vaccinated, I’ve always felt a little left out of the hype because I was too old in 2006 when the vaccine came out to get it and remain too old even though it’s now approved up to age 45. So, I was totally game to get my shot even if it was in my toes and not the traditional upper arm.
Alas, he could not give it to me because the large group practice he is a part of does not allow such off-label use. Instead, we are trying a similar technique using candida (yes, that candida that causes yeast infections) to spur the immune response. His explanation was that my immune system has seen candida before (oh, has it), and when it sends out the troops to fight it, they will notice the virus and start fighting that as well. He expects it to take at least six injections, possibly eight.
It hurt.
A lot.
I’ll let you know how it goes, but I’m anticipating a pedicureless summer for me.
Hope it works!