Cryotherapy is carried out by using extreme cold to freeze and treat certain skin conditions. The substance used to freeze your skin is usually liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen freezes your skin until the surface area is numb. The technician then removes skin lesions like:
When you come into the pharmacy your lesion will be cleaned with antiseptic. Then your technician will apply the liquid nitrogen. You don’t usually need any anaesthetic because there is minimal (if any) pain and the procedure is very quick. Once the liquid nitrogen is applied the wart, skin tag or verruca can be removed.
It takes about one or two minutes for your skin to come back up to normal temperature and first it may look red and sore, but this will soon disappear
A wart is a rough lump commonly found on the hands or knees. A wart is a grey or white colour with a round shape. They come from the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) This infection causes excess amounts of keratin to develop on the skin which turns into a wart.
Warts can be transmitted to your skin from contaminated objects or surfaces like those found in swimming pools. Warts aren’t considered to be contagious, but they could be passed on by close skin-to-skin contact.
A wart will eventually disappear by itself, but this could take up to 2 years which is why many people choose to have cryotherapy and get the wart removed immediately.
Skin tags are harmless. They are skin coloured and hang from your skin. They can be from a few millimetres in size, up to 5cm wide. The most common places you’ll see skin tags are on your neck, arms, armpits, eyelids, and under your breasts.
Skin tags aren’t contagious, and they don’t normally cause pain or discomfort unless they rub against clothing.
Skin tags occur commonly in overweight people who tend to have skin folds that rub against each other, but anyone can get a skin tag. They are made up of loose collagen fibres and blood vessels.
They are very easy to remove, and a session of cryotherapy can take care of any unsightly skin tags you may have.
A Verruca is actually a wart. But you only find them on the soles of the feet. The medical name for them is Plantar wart. They look round in appearance and sometimes have black dots in the centre which are tiny blood vessels which have clotted on your skin.
A verruca can be painful to walk on and it can spread from person to person by contact with floors and surfaces which are contaminated. It’s common to catch a verruca in a swimming pool because the warm, wet environment encourages the spread of the virus.
It can take two years for a verruca to disappear. Removal with cryotherapy will give you a cure after 4 to 7 days when the blister the treatment eaves breaks up and falls away.
If you have any of the above skin conditions and you don’t want them removed by cryotherapy, there are other options. Here at the pharmacy, we have a range of creams, sprays and plasters that can help with wart or verruca removal. The process will take longer (sometimes up to 3 months). If you would like to know more speak to a member of staff who will be happy to advise you.
Your Pharmacy can help you to treat warts or verrucas. They are a common skin complaint and mostly affect your hands and feet. Read on to find out how the pharmacy can help you.
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