You have probably already tried something. A paint from the chemist. Duct tape, because the internet said so. Maybe you had one frozen off somewhere and it came back three months later, slightly bigger and with friends.
Warts are stubborn, and most of the frustration around them comes from treating them as a cosmetic nuisance rather than what they are — a viral skin infection with a specific life cycle and a specific way of being cleared.
This page explains what warts actually are, the different types we see at our clinic on Argwings Kodhek Road, how each one is treated, and the honest bit most pages leave out: what treatment can do to your skin tone, and how we work around it.
What a wart actually is (and why it keeps coming back)
A wart is a small growth caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV. There are over a hundred strains of HPV, and only a handful cause the everyday skin warts most people deal with.
The virus infects the top layer of your skin and makes those cells multiply faster than they should. The result is that rough, raised, slightly grainy lump — thickened skin built on top of an infection that lives underneath it.
That last detail is the important one. Filing or cutting the surface off does not remove the wart. The virus sits in the skin below. Take the top off and it simply builds again, which is exactly why so many home treatments seem to work for a fortnight and then fail.
Why some people get them and others don’t
Two people can touch the same gym bench and only one walks away with a wart. What tips the balance:
- Broken skin. A shaving nick, a cracked heel, a hangnail. HPV needs a way in.
- Damp, shared surfaces. Pool decks, changing room floors, communal showers.
- Your immune system. Warts are far more common and far more persistent if your immunity is suppressed — through medication, illness, or a period of genuine physical stress.
- Time. Children’s immune systems often clear warts on their own within a year or two. Adult warts are much less likely to go quietly.
The six types of wart we see most
They are not interchangeable. Where a wart sits changes how it looks, how much it hurts and which treatment makes sense.
| Type | Where it usually appears | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Common wart | Hands, fingers, knees, elbows | Firm, raised, rough like cauliflower; often tiny black dots |
| Plantar wart (verruca) | Soles of the feet, heels, toes | Flat and pressed inward, often painful to stand on, ringed by hard skin |
| Flat wart | Face, forehead, backs of hands, legs | Small, smooth, barely raised; appear in clusters of dozens |
| Filiform wart | Eyelids, lips, nose, neck | Thin finger-like projections on a narrow stalk |
| Periungual wart | Around and under fingernails and toenails | Rough, cracked, can distort nail growth |
| Genital wart | Genital and anal skin | Soft, skin-coloured, sometimes clustered; caused by different HPV strains |
Those tiny black dots people notice in common and plantar warts are not dirt. They are clotted capillaries — small blood vessels feeding the wart. It is a useful sign, because it helps distinguish a plantar wart from a corn.
Plantar warts deserve a special mention
Because you walk on them, plantar warts grow inward rather than outward. That makes them painful, harder to reach, and considerably more stubborn than a wart on the back of your hand. They also get mistaken for corns constantly. A corn hurts when you press directly down on it. A plantar wart tends to hurt more when you squeeze it from the sides.
Genital warts are handled here too
This matters practically. Many patients with genital warts in Nairobi get bounced between a general practitioner, a gynaecologist and a dermatologist. Dr Nancy is a consultant dermatologist and venereologist, so assessment and treatment happen in one place, in one appointment, discreetly. If that is why you are reading this page, you do not need to explain yourself twice.
Is it definitely a wart? What else it could be
This is the part a cryo pen at a beauty bar cannot do for you.
Several things look enough like a wart to be confidently misdiagnosed:
- Corns and calluses — thickened skin from pressure, very commonly confused with plantar warts
- Seborrhoeic keratoses — harmless age-related growths, often mistaken for common warts
- Molluscum contagiosum — a different viral infection, small and dome-shaped with a dip in the centre
- Skin tags — soft and hanging rather than rough and rooted
- Squamous cell carcinoma — rare, but a lesion that bleeds easily, grows steadily, or refuses to heal needs a proper look, not a freeze
If something is changing shape, bleeding without being knocked, or has simply not budged after repeated treatment, we take a sample and check rather than guess. That is what a skin biopsy and mole check is for.
How we remove warts at our Nairobi clinic
The right treatment depends on the type of wart, where it is, how long you have had it, how many there are, and your skin tone.
| Treatment | Best suited to | Typical sessions | Downtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cryotherapy | Common, plantar and filiform warts | Several, spaced 2–3 weeks apart | Blister for a few days; keep dry |
| Electrocautery | Filiform and stubborn single warts | Usually one | Small scab, heals over 1–2 weeks |
| Curettage / shave | Larger or resistant warts | Usually one | Small wound, dressed on the day |
| Topical treatment | Flat warts, large clusters, children | Weeks of home use | Minimal, but slow |
Cryotherapy
Liquid nitrogen is applied to freeze the wart and the skin immediately around it. The tissue dies off and lifts away over the following week or two, taking the infected cells with it. It stings sharply for a few seconds and is over quickly.
Cryotherapy almost always needs a course rather than a single visit — most warts take several sessions two to three weeks apart. Anyone promising one-and-done for a plantar wart is overselling it. More on our cryotherapy treatment.
Electrocautery
A fine heated tip removes the wart precisely under local anaesthetic. It is particularly good for filiform warts on the face and neck, where accuracy matters, and for single stubborn warts that have shrugged off freezing. See electrocautery.
Curettage and shave removal
For bigger or well-established warts, the lesion is numbed and removed with a curette, sometimes finished with cautery. It gives an immediate result and, where there is any doubt about the diagnosis, produces a sample we can send for testing. Related: skin lesion scraping.
Topical and at-home options
Salicylic acid preparations and other topical agents have a real role — particularly for flat warts, for large clusters where freezing every one would be brutal, and for young children. They are slow and need consistency for weeks. We will tell you honestly when this is the sensible route rather than the in-clinic one.
The pigmentation question nobody asks out loud
Here is the thing most pages skip.
Freezing and burning both cause controlled injury to the skin. On deeper skin tones, that injury can leave behind a mark — a lighter patch where pigment has been lost, or a darker one where the skin has overreacted. It is called post-inflammatory hypopigmentation or hyperpigmentation, and it is not rare.
Plenty of patients arrive having cleared a wart somewhere else, only to be left with a pale circle on the back of the hand that bothers them more than the wart did.
We plan around it. That means:
- Choosing treatment intensity with your skin tone as a factor, not an afterthought
- Being more conservative on the face, neck and hands, where any mark is visible
- Sometimes preferring a slower topical route where a fast freeze would trade one problem for another
- Telling you the realistic risk before we start, not after
Working with skin of colour is not an add-on service here. It is the default.
What your first appointment looks like
- We look properly. Sometimes with dermoscopy. We confirm it is a wart before treating it as one.
- We ask about history. How long, whether it has spread, what you have already tried, whether anyone at home has them too.
- We talk through options. Including what each one is likely to do to your skin, and roughly how many visits it will take.
- We usually start the same day. Most wart treatments do not need a separate appointment.
- You leave with aftercare instructions and a clear plan for the next session if one is needed.
Appointments run from 8:30am to 5:00pm on weekdays, and Saturdays until 4:00pm if the week is hard to get away from.
Stopping them spreading: a short checklist
Warts spread to other parts of your own body and to other people. While you are being treated:
- Don’t pick, bite or shave over them — this is the single most effective way to spread them
- Cover them with a plaster during sport, swimming and gym sessions
- Wear flip-flops in communal showers and around pool decks
- Keep your own towel, nail file and clippers — do not share
- Dry thoroughly, especially between toes
- Treat the foot before it becomes six feet — plantar warts spread through a household easily
- Finish the course — stopping when it looks better is why they come back
Warts in children
Children get warts constantly, mostly on hands and feet, mostly from school and swimming.
The good news is that a child’s immune system often clears them without any treatment at all, sometimes within a year or two. That means aggressive treatment is frequently the wrong call — freezing a nervous seven-year-old repeatedly for something that would have resolved on its own is not good care.
We take a gentler line: confirm the diagnosis, treat when it is painful, spreading fast, or affecting their confidence, and otherwise watch it sensibly. More on how we work with younger patients on our paediatric dermatology page.
Getting to the clinic
We are on the 2nd floor of Landmark Plaza, Argwings Kodhek Road — on the Hurlingham edge of Upper Hill, a short drive from Kilimani, Kileleshwa and Lavington, and close enough to walk from parts of Hurlingham.
Patients come to us from across the city. If you are coming from further out, these pages cover directions and parking from each side of town:
- Dermatologist in Upper Hill — five minutes away, early appointments before the Bunyala Road traffic builds
- Dermatologist in Kilimani
- Dermatologist in Westlands
- Every area we serve
Frequently asked questions
How long does wart removal take? A single cryotherapy session takes a few minutes. The full course is the longer answer — most warts need two to four sessions spaced two to three weeks apart. Electrocautery or curettage is often a single visit.
Does it hurt? Cryotherapy stings sharply for a few seconds, similar to a hard flick. Electrocautery and curettage are done under local anaesthetic, so you feel pressure rather than pain. Plantar warts are usually the most uncomfortable, simply because of where they are.
Will it leave a scar or a mark? Scarring is uncommon with careful treatment. A temporary change in skin colour is more likely, particularly on deeper skin tones. We discuss the realistic risk with you before starting and choose the approach accordingly.
How much does wart removal cost in Nairobi? It depends on the type of wart, how many there are and which treatment is appropriate — a single filiform wart and a cluster of twenty plantar warts are very different jobs. Call 0728 566990 and we will give you a straight answer for your situation.
Can I just use a wart paint from the chemist? Sometimes, yes — particularly for flat warts and in children. But it only works if it is genuinely a wart, and it needs weeks of consistent use. If you have been at it for two months with no change, the diagnosis or the method needs revisiting.
Will the wart come back? It can. HPV lives in the skin, and clearing the visible wart does not always clear the virus entirely. Completing the full course rather than stopping early substantially reduces the odds of recurrence.
Are warts contagious? Yes — by direct skin contact and by contaminated surfaces. They also spread on your own body, which is why picking and shaving over them is such a problem.
Do I need a referral? No. You can book directly.
Can you treat genital warts? Yes. Dr Nancy is a consultant dermatologist and venereologist, so this is assessed and treated here rather than referred elsewhere. See genital skin and STI care.
My child has warts — should we just wait? Often, yes. Many childhood warts clear on their own. We would still confirm the diagnosis, and treat if they are painful, spreading quickly, or upsetting your child.
Book an appointment
If something has been sitting on your hand or foot for months, it is very unlikely to go away by being ignored — and it is a short appointment to sort out.
We open at 8:30am Monday to Friday and 9:00am to 4:00pm on Saturdays.
Landmark Plaza, 2nd Floor, Argwings Kodhek Rd, Nairobi
Call or WhatsApp 0728 566990
info@skinbydrnancy.com
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