redbird | Entries tagged with wart

I saw the dermatologist, who told me that the wart is entirely gone after the first treatment. She looked at my finger, said she thought the wart was gone, and then took a closer look (including scraping off a bit of callus over where the wart had been, and confirmed that. She also explained how she knows this--if there was a wart, it would be sticking up more, and there would be visible capillaries there. So, that's all done, more easily than I had expected. I do still have some dried-out skin on that finger, after a skin infection from when I pulled off a bandage that was stubbornly sticking to the skin. For that, she suggested using a moisturizing lotion and then putting vaseline over it.

JP Licks has peach ice cream, and it's very good. I missed my chance at cucumber last month, and am going to go back and get more peach ice cream soon, even if I haven't finished this pint by then.

cattitude was disappointed by the non-dairy black raspberry, because there was too much coconut flavor.

I got a "check your files" email yesterday, from the Social Security Administration:. The "reconsideration" (first appeal) of the denial of benefits has gotten as far as having someone new look at my medical records. I'm not sure if this counts as progress, but it's happening faster than I expected, given how long it took them to decide on my original application.

The knee I scraped when I fell last week is healing annoyingly slowly, but it is healing. I just did some PT exercises that made the knee hurt when I tried them a few days ago.

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I saw a dermatologist this afternoon. She treated my wart with liquid nitrogen, at a lower temperature and with a pointier device than my primary care doctor used.

The dermatologist scraped all the callus off the wart before using the liquid nitrogen. This nitrogen freezing hurt, which I hope means it got to the actual wart. T

Then she applied beetle juice. Really, that's what she called it (I think it's more formal name is cantharides.) She suggested I wait a couple of days, then go back to using the liquid salicylic acid solution, before going to bed. She also said both that the in-office treatment today might be sufficient if I don't use the salicylic acid, and that it would worth using the salicylic acid even if I don't do it every day.

I have a follow-up appointment for another round of this treatment, and/or a different treatment, in early August. The other thing she mentioned is a topical drug that is used for skin cancer, or growths that might turn into cancer; it targets rapidly-dividing cells, which apparently are a thing in at least some warts.

I don't know what I will be doing tomorrow, but I don't have any more medical appointments until next week.

Tags:

health,
wart

Two cryogenic zaps, about thirty second each, on the right place this time. (There have now been several correct and one only partly on the wart.)

The doctor told me to go back to using the salicylic acid patches, but be careful with the bandage tape, so as not to irritate the skin on that finger which is still dry and feels a bit rough.

Follow-up in two weeks, with Pam again because Andrea doesn't have in-person availability and this needs to be in person.

The doctor's office is no longer requiring masks, and the receptionists weren't wearing masks. So I told the person who checked me in to ask Andrea to wear a mask, which she did, which makes it lower-risk than the transit to and from the appointment, or the quick stops to buy meat and bread. There may have been one other customer in the meat market, and the only person at When Pigs Fly was the cashier. There are advantages to shopping at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, though I would have preferred to be able to sleep late.

We now have ground lamb, which is defrosting in the refrigerator, and a rosemary foccacia.

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Friday's anti-wart cryotherapy didn't work. Or, rather, when I took the anti-wart patch off this morning and looked at my finger, there was a blister. I had unfortunately been correct when I told the doctor on Friday that I thought she was freezing the wrong spot.

I sent her a message through MyChart, which did not actually say "I told you so" but "unfortunately, I was correct." I'm going to call her tomorrow or Tuesday, after thinking about what I want to do here. The plausible options seem to be another cryotherapy treatment or two, and/or giving the salicylic acid patches a bit more time, or just taking that dermatology referral. I am not using the salicylic acid patches until the blister heals, in any case.

Also, after sending the message I got

cattitude to take a few photos of the blister, in case the doctor asks for them.

ETA: I had

adrian_turtle apply a hydrocolloid bandage to the blister.

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I went to the doctor today. The NP I saw (Pam) thinks the infection is basically gone, and said I could stop the antibiotic ointment. I told her I wanted to do the full 10 days as prescribed, and she agreed that was also reasonable.

She used the cryogenic thing on my wart, and the first application hurt enough more than in previous weeks that I told her not to do a second.

I have a follow-up with Andrea (who has a lot more experience with that wart treatment) in a couple of weeks. I'm not supposed to do anything for/to the wart in the meantime. In a fortnight, I will ask her whether to resume using the salicylic acid pad, once the irritation that seems to have led to he skin infection is thoroughly gone.

Also, continue to moisturize, either Vaseline (just on the relevant part of my index finger) or hand lotion.

Then I took the 96 bus to a Walgreens on Mass Ave near Cambridge Common, to get more insurance-paid covid tests before that coverage goes away. Covid tests in hand, another bus to Harvard, where I bought two pints of ice cream before heading home.

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I went to the doctor this morning and had my wart zapped (frozen) again. The doctor said that it looked as though it was healing/shrinking. This treatment hurt significantly more than the previous treatment, two weeks ago, which also suggests that the previous zapping, and the salicylic acid, are having an effect.

I stopped using the salicylic acid patches on Tuesday, because the bandage adhesive has badly irritated the skin on both sides of that finger. We agreed that I shouldn't resume using that yet (if at all) and I am getting it zapped again a week from today, instead of two weeks.

Andrea, who did these two treatments, has next week off, so she called someone else in and showed her how to do it, and my appointment next Friday afternoon is with Pam. (My usual doctor, Carmen, seems to be busier than Andrea, and this isn't something for which I care who I see, as long as it's at that medical practice.)

Tags:

wart

I had my quarterly telemedicine appointment for Ritalin refills and whatever else is on my or the doctor's mind. This month the other things were:

me having fallen a couple of months ago, with a segue into my various balance exercises
the wart treatment, which seems to be going well -- taping the wart treatment pad on, as the other nurse practitioner advised, and then putting on a nitrile glove before showering, kept it from falling off my finger quickly
whether raw eggs are (reasonably) safe for me to eat, with a segue into our chocolate mousse recipe, which I offered to send her; and
a second opinion on what Dr AbdelRazek told me about eating in restaurants, since he hasn't answered my question about my risk if I do get sick. It turned out Carmen had started to look for that information before realizing that I'd sent the MyChart message to the neurologist rather than to her,. She mostly found the same things I mentioned having found, plus that there's an increased risk with Ocrevus (which I'm taking) but not other MS medications with a similar mechanism of actio, which is odd but not actionable.

Carmen also told me that she looked into convalescent plasma on my behalf, because it's being considered as a possibly useful treatment now that we've lost Evusheld and most of the other options, but she doesn't think it's currently being offered in the Boston area. She specifically asked Mass General, because they had been doing research into it early in the pandemic, and they no longer have it.

I couldn't trim the mousse recipe enough to fit into the character limit for a MyChart message, and the "attach files" option works for at least a dozen file types, all image files. So I saved the recipe as a PDF, attached it, and said that if it's not readable I'll mail her a hardcopy c/o her office.

This is Amy Thomson's "Easy Chocolate Mousse" from The Bakery Men Don't See, the first fundraising cookbook for what was then called the Tiptree Award (now the Otherwise).

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We took our cats to the vet yesterday, their first time at this vet. It went well, I think. The vet and a tech examined the cats, including listening to their heartbeats and breathing; drew blood for some routine tests; vaccinated them; and clipped their claws. The vet called today with the test results: Molly's are all "just fine," and Kaja's sodium and amylase levels are a little high, but the vet said the sodium might be a lab error, and the creatine level isn't high enough to worry about. In particular, she told me that both cats' kidneys are fine.

Sometime in the next 30 days,

cattitude will get urine samples. for which they gave us a kit, and a stool sample, and we'll bring them to the vet. Sometimes the vet has been able to take a urine sample, and other times it hasn't worked.

This morning, I went to Somerville to have my wart zapped again. This time, I have instructions to apply a salicylic pad to the wart, changing it every other day, and tips on keeping the pad from falling off when I wash my hands, and a follow-up appointment 12 days from now, for another round of treatment. I am not optimistic about keeping the salicylic acid pads on my hand for 48 hours, and suspect that when I wash my hands, some of the salicylic acid will wind up in the water instead of on my hand. I suspect I will be sending Andrea a MyChart message asking what to do.

And I have to get blood drawn for some tests, sometime in the next three weeks (before my Ocrevus infusion). I got a call about this after lunch, and just wish they'd called this morning, when I was already on that side of the river.

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When I saw my doctor on Thursday, she recommended either anti-wart pads, or salicylic acid to paint onto the wart.

cattitude and

adrian_turtle went to the drugstore yesterday and bought some wart pads (labeled as being for feet, but the "do not use" locations are genital warts, the face, and mucus membranes).

I have now applied the first patch. I cut the cushioning patch in half because the wart is near a knuckle, and will hope it stays on. The package saying that this "salicylic acid 40%.

The package says to repeat the procedure every 48 hours until the wart is removed, for up to 12 weeks. If the cushioning pad comes off too soon, I may try putting a band-aid over it, or use an entire cushioning pad (instead of a semicircle) with the next medicated patch.

If that doesn't work, I'll buy the wart remover that comes in a bottle with a tiny brush.

Tags:

wart,
wart remover

Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Don't mourn, organize

4 things make a post

today it was the dermatologist

another round of wart treatment

blister

medical: finger follow-up

wart zapped, again

telemedicine with Carmen

medical stuff, human and feline

wart treatment

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