Warts, be gone!

Warts are a part of growing up. They can appear on your hands or legs and can disappear just as quick.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. I had an uninvited guest put down roots on my face beside my nose. I cannot say how old I was exactly. It was around the late nineties.
During my teenage years, I did go through spells of acne. At fourteen, my G.P. put me on a course of antibiotics for my skin. Not the best treatment, perhaps; at the time, I just wanted to be rid of all the spots!
I believe what we eat and drink and hormones play major roles in our complexion. Writing now about what causes spots/pimples/acne would be a digression from the main post!

It is possible the wart virus got through a pimple and claimed its place for years to come.
On occasion, I woke up with dried blood on my face, where I scratched the surface off the wart. It would just seal itself over and stubbornly not go anywhere. Until that is, another appeared about an inch away, on the side of my nose.

My G.P. advised that having them cut out would leave a scar. I had cryotherapy on my feet as a child to remove verrucas. It was unsuccessful.
Laser therapy for wart removal is available, albeit on the pricier side.
Wart removal via scalpel, cryotherapy or laser were not options for me. I decided to look for a natural remedy.
One internet search was all it took to find my solution.

Photo taken before trying home remedy. September 2017

Two ingredients that you may already have in your kitchen were the evictors of my unwanted residents.
Apple cider vinegar and lemon juice. Simple.

As the following paragraph is from my personal experience, I am not advising people to try this method. It worked for me, my skin type and depending on a person’s health, recovery time will vary. My healing time took up to two weeks.
Everyone has different skin types and reactions. There are serious risks involved, such as permanent scarring or skin infections.

It is necessary to pierce the surface of the wart to reach the roots. I used a sterilised needle or a piecer tool from a blackhead removal kit I bought off the internet. After piercing the surface, I applied a cotton tip soaked in the apple cider vinegar to the wart. Having squeezed a lemon, I used the lemon juice the same as the apple cider vinegar.
These concentrates are irritants and If applied to the surrounding skin, may lead to redness or stinging.
In the early days, I applied a piece of cotton and some tape to cover the area. Once scabbed over, a covering is not necessary. The healing process can be much more unsightly than the wart itself. If you plan to use a home remedy method, do it when you have nothing else on.
I loosely followed instructions from the internet. The methods used for each wart were slightly different. Applying the lemon juice or apple cider vinegar first or second, how often and for how long. To cover or leave exposed is your own choice.

For well over a decade, these warts were a nuisance. I have read many books about natural and home remedies. However, a method for wart removal never jumped out at me. Maybe, I thought the face could not handle the same method as skin elsewhere on the body.

Photo taken after writing this post. March 2021

In 2017, I tried it and experienced some mild side effects. Stinging, bleaching, redness and a scab the size of approximately a centimetre squared.

Viruses trapped in the skin layers do not go away without persistence. The lemon juice and apple cider vinegar are acidic and excellent at combating pathogens.

Once my skin was healed, the warts were gone.

Ever have a pain in the neck?!

Many of us hold stress and tension in our neck and shoulders. If this sounds like you, take a deep breath and exhale for 5 seconds. Repeat until you feel better.

Now, let’s talk about neck and shoulder issues. In particular, those niggly knots!
The levator scapulae are a pair of hardworking muscles at the back of our neck. They attach to the shoulder blades, from the spine, and are under increased tension (being overstretched) when we sit with our head forward or are looking down constantly. Then we have the trapezius, our stingray shaped muscle,😀 nearest the surface.
I find knots galore in these beauties on many of my clients.
Knots are a result of poor posture and lack of blood flow to the muscle tissues. They consist of constricted muscle fibres where lovely oxygen rich blood isn’t flowing freely. Waste builds up leading to tight or sore muscles. Aside from having a massage where I would help manually bring heat and manipulate the deep muscle tissue, try the following:

Apply heat (heat packs/hot water bottle, have a bath, or steam/sauna). Please do not apply heat-pack directly to the skin and use for a maximum time of 30 minutes. Heat in all its glory dilates the blood vessels, allowing blood to flow easily.

When heated sufficiently, stretch. We were born to move and move our muscles, we must!
If you don’t fancy applying heat, doing an activity that warms you up or makes you sweat, is even better. Remember to warm up and cool down. Gently does it.

Hydrate. Water has too many benefits to name but staying hydrated, especially during/after exercise, is really important. A hydrated body heals faster (as water increases our blood volume bringing nutrients to the cells and removing waste products from them that much quicker).

These are my tips for reducing neck and shoulder tension. If you are suffering from ongoing pain, please see your health professional for a physical check-up.

A stretched muscle is elongated, lengthened…r e l a x e d.
An overstretched muscle is weak and usually has an overworked muscle opposing it. Like most things in life, it’s about finding the balance. Your body doesn’t love being over-worked and it doesn’t appreciate being under-used!

Be kind to your body, you only have the one.

Thanks for reading