How can I prevent genital warts? NYC New York NY

Don't have sex with someone who has genital warts or is being treated for genital warts.
Use latex condoms, even if you are using another form of birth control.
Get vaccinated with the HPV vaccine. One vaccine, called Gardasil, is approved for girls and women ages 9 to 26 and protects against the development of cervical cancer. It is best to get the shot before the start of sexual activity. The vaccine consists of a series of three shots, with shot two coming 2 months after the first, and shot three coming 6 months after the first. If you already have HPV, the vaccine does not treat or cure but can still help protect against other types of HPV infections (other than those that cause cervical cancer; for example, the vaccine can help protect against the HPV that causes genital warts).

How are genital warts treated? NYC New York NY

You cannot treat genital warts yourself. If you think you have them, don't delay getting examined and treated. The longer genital warts go untreated, the more difficult they are to cure. With the help of a health care provider, genital warts are removed with the following methods:

Chemicals that dissolve the warts (applied by the health care provider or by the patient)
Laser lights or electric current
Freezing with a special device
Injections of medicine into the wart
Surgery (for warts that are large or difficult to treat)

Cryosurgery Anal Warts NYC New York NY

Cryosurgery Warts NYC New York NY

We liquid nitrogen for freezing the anal warts

Genital Warts Treatment Center is opened 7 Days a Week New York NY

Genital Warts Prevention NYC New York, NY

Using a condom every time you have sex can significantly reduce your risk of contracting genital warts.

Vaccination now available
A vaccine known as Gardasil protects against the strains of HPV that cause most genital warts. Gardasil also protects against the HPV strains most likely to cause cervical cancer. Another vaccine, called Cervarix, protects against cervical cancer but not genital warts.

The national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends routine HPV vaccination for girls and boys ages 11 and 12. If not fully vaccinated at that age, it’s recommended that girls and women through age 26 and boys and men through age 21 receive the vaccine. However, men may receive the HPV vaccine through age 26 if desired. These vaccines are most effective if given to children before they become sexually active.

New York City

Imiquimod

Imiquimod is a an immune response modifier. It is manufactured as a 5% cream called Aldara™. Imiquimod is mainly used to treat genital warts, solar keratoses and basal cell skin cancers.

Imiquimod works by stimulating the immune system to release a number of chemicals called cytokines, which are important in fighting viruses and destroying cancer cells.

When used to treat skin cancers and pre-cancerous lesions it results in inflammation, which destroys the lesion. The degree of inflammation is quite variable from person to person, in part due to the type of skin lesion and in part due to genetic factors. The imiquimod is taken up by the so-called ‘toll-like receptor 7’ on certain immune cells that are found in the outside part of the skin (the epidermis); these receptors are expressed more in some individuals and in some skin lesions than in others.

Imiquimod is particularly useful on areas where surgery or other treatments may be difficult, complicated or otherwise undesirable, especially the face and lower legs.

A course of treatment ranges from 4 to 16 weeks. Before starting, a biopsy may be performed to confirm the diagnosis. Your doctor should carefully monitor the treatment because you may need to apply the cream more or less frequently than originally planned or for a shorter or longer course, depending on response. Once the inflammation has settled there is generally a good or excellent cosmetic result with little scarring.

Imiquimod is particularly useful for:

Solar keratoses (also called actinic keratoses or SKs).
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC), especially superficial types
Bowen disease, also known as in-situ squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), an unregistered indication at this time (June 2008)

Electrosurgery

Electrosurgery
Electrosurgery (curettage & cautery) is used for particularly large and annoying warts. Under local anaesthetic, the growth is pared away and the base burned by diathermy or cautery. The wound heals in about two weeks; even then 20% of warts can be expected to recur within a few months.

Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy
The wart is frozen with liquid nitrogen repeatedly, at one to three week intervals. This is uncomfortable for a few minutes and may result in blistering for several days. Success is in the order of 70% after 3-4 months of regular freezing. Dermatologists debate whether a light freeze to stimulate immunity is sufficient, or whether a harder freeze is necessary to destroy all the infected skin. A hard freeze might cause a permanent white mark or scar.

Treatment

Treatment
Many people don't bother to treat them because treatment can be more uncomfortable and troublesome than the warts - they are hardly ever a serious problem. However, warts may be painful and they often look ugly and cause embarrassment.
To get rid of them, we have to stimulate the body's own immune system to attack the wart virus. Persistence with the treatment and patience is essential!
Occlusion
Just keeping the wart covered 24 hours of the day may result in clearance. Duct tape is convenient and inexpensive.
Chemical treatment.
Chemical treatment includes wart paints containing salicylic acid or similar compounds, which work by removing the dead surface skin cells. Podophyllin is a cytotoxic agent, and must not be used in pregnancy or in women considering pregnancy.
The paint is normally applied once daily. Perseverance is essential - although 70% of warts will go with wart paints, it may take twelve weeks to work! Even if the wart doesn't go completely, the wart paint usually makes it smaller and less uncomfortable.
First, the skin should be softened in a bath or bowl of hot soapy water. The hard skin should be rubbed away from the wart surface with a piece of pumice stone or emery board. The wart paint or gel should be applied accurately, allowing it to dry. It works better if covered with plaster or duct tape (particularly recommended when the wart is on the foot).
Stronger preparations such as Upton's paste are used for thick verrucas, applied every few days. It is important to protect the surrounding skin with adhesive plaster before applying Upton's paste, and to apply a plaster over the paste to keep it in place.
If the chemical makes the skin sore, stop treatment until the discomfort has settled, then recommence as above. Take care to keep the chemical off normal skin.
3% formalin solution can be used to soak multiple mosaic plantar warts several times a week. Protect unaffected skin with Vaseline, and apply cotton wool soaked in the solution, left in place for about ten minutes before rinsing off.

In children

In children, even without treatment, 50% of warts disappear within 6 months; 90% are gone in 2 years. They are more persistent in adults but they clear up eventually.
Warts are particularly numerous and troublesome in patients that are immunosuppressed, most often due to medications such as azathioprine or ciclosporin. In these patients, the warts almost never disappear despite treatment.

Common warts
Cauliflower wart
Plantar warts

What do they look like?

What do they look like?
Warts have a hard ‘warty’ or ‘verrucous’ surface. You can often see a tiny black dot in the middle of each scaly spot, due to a thrombosed capillary blood vessel. There are various types of viral wart.
Common warts arise most often on the backs of fingers or toes, and on the knees.
Plantar warts (verrucas) include one or more tender inwardly growing ‘myrmecia’ on the sole of the foot.
Mosaic warts on the sole of the foot are in clusters over an area sometimes several centimetres in diameter.
Plane, or flat, warts can be very numerous and may be inoculated by shaving.
Periungual warts prefer to grow at the sides or under the nails and can distort nail growth.
Filiform warts are on a long stalk.
Oral warts can affect the lips and even inside the cheeks. They include squamous cell papillomas.
Genital warts are often transmitted sexually and predispose to cervical, penile and vulval cancer.

Viral warts

Viral warts
Warts are tumours or growths of the skin caused by infection with Human Papillomavirus (HPV). More than 70 HPV subtypes are known.
Warts are particularly common in childhood and are spread by direct contact or autoinocculation. This means if a wart is scratched, the viral particles may be spread to another area of skin. It may take as long as twelve months for the wart to first appear.