As plantar warts are viral in origin, this also interferes with the natural fingerprint-like ridges of your skin. A doctor can usually immediately tell if the lines in the skin are indicative of a wart or just hardened skin.
Pain and sensation
The way that the pain feels can often be the most obvious clue:
Calluses generally hurt if you press directly down on them, such as if you’re standing still.
Plantar warts sting more if you pinch them from the sides. This is because the pressure of walking pushes them inwards, making the pain deeper.
While calluses often occur in areas such as the heel or the ball of the foot because these areas have the most friction, plantar warts can occur anywhere on the sole where the virus entered the foot.
3. Treatment, prevention, and why proper diagnosis matter
The greatest risk of incorrectly identifying a wart is that a person might try to “file it away” like a piece of dead skin. While pumice stones or razors used on a wart can remove some of the skin cells on top of it, they won’t kill the virus. In fact, they can cause more pain or even spread the virus to more areas of the skin.
Proper treatment
NHS notes that because plantar warts are caused by a virus, it means the treatment of them focuses on removing the affected area in order to stop the virus from spreading. According to medical standards, some of the most common treatments of plantar warts include:
Salicylic acid – the application of a slow-acting peel on the wart.
Cryotherapy – the application of liquid nitrogen on the wart to freeze it.
