What is it? Wart...corn...boil...

Recently, Savannah had some sort of painful blister looking bump on the outside of her pinky finger.  She had it for a couple of weeks until it became so painful that we had to do something about it.  When she would write, there was a significant amount of pain and rubbing.  We tried covering it with a bandage, but it was still hurting. In the beginning it looked more like a blister, but it seemed to be growing.


Several people that we are acquainted with had looked at it and immediately said..."Oh, that is a wart."  After a few days of significant pain and apparent growth of the "blistered" area, we decided to take her to a doctor.  On the way, we stopped at the library and ran into someone else we knew.  He looked at it and immediately said.."That's a seed wart."    



I took her by Walgreen's to see about getting an over-the-counter wart removal medication.  The pharmacist even looked at it and thought it was a wart.  I called Jason, and we both decided that since we were already in town that I should go ahead and take her to the doctor and have them look at it.  
We went to the "quick care" and were able to get in immediately.  The attending physician looked at it and said it was not a wart.  It was a corn...like the kind you get on a toe.  Confused...yes!  Relieved that we did not treat it like a wart...yes!  He told us it was caused by the pressure from her writing and told us to buy corn pads and keep them on it until it goes down.  He said the only other thing that could be done was to graduallly "sand" it down.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought a pumice stone and some corn pads.  


After about 3 more weeks, the "corn" was still painful and growing.  It was actually growing out of the height of the corn pad.  We decided to see her doctor and make an appointment.  Upon arrival at the doctor, I explained all that had happened since we first noticed the bump.  When I said that the other doctor we had seen said it was a corn, his reaction was "Who told you that was a corn?"  He said it was definitely a wart and needed to come off.  


Then began the painful but quick procedure of removal. This brings us to the main reason I am writing this post.  As we searched and searched online for information or pictures regarding the wart and the removal procedure, we just were not able to find much.  We could not find any information on-line about how long the pain would be after the medication wore off, what kind of pain was normal, or how long the whole "wart removal" procedure would take from start to finish.  At one time the area was red around the rim and looked slightly like it had pus forming.  We could find nothing about the stages after the removal that the wart would go through so here is the way it was for us.

Wart Removal:  The area is first deadened by inserting a needle near the area of the wart.  Warning...the pinky finger area does not have much fat and flesh making it a very painful area to insert a needle.  That was the most painful part of the actual removal process.  Then, the wart is removed and the area is burned off with liquid nitrogen.  That is actually the easy part.  However, once the pain medication/numbing medication wears off, there is an intense burning and pain to the area.  We had not been told to what to expect after the medicine wore off so it was alarming to have that amount of pain for her and not know what we could put on it.  We used ibuprofen to help deaden the pain.  It was very puffy at the site following the procedure and for a couple of days afterwards.  We were told to keep a bandage with antibiotic ointment on it for several days until the blackening area began to diminish. It took a week for the blackening area to start to fade away/come off.  It still hurt for any pressure to be placed on the area or for it to be bumped.  During this time, There were a couple of days that the area had a red rim around it and looked like it had developed some pus in the middle.  (I guess this was normal because it is now healing fine.)  This pain lasted for about a week and a half.  

 It has been 2 weeks tomorrow night since the removal.  The picture shows how the skin is beginning to dry out and heal.  Now the only pain she has is in the deep areas of the site when she presses hard on the area.  The doctor said that there is a 70% chance that he was able to "get all" the wart.  He said there may be possible scaring for about a year.  He also said that the next time we will try to get it removed before it gets so big.  I only hope for her sake that there is not a next time.