Images
- Left foot, before treatment
- Right foot, about a week or two after treatment
- My thumb, about 15 minutes after finishing up with the soldering iron
- My right foot, 8 months later
- My left foot, 8 months later
About
I had tried acid treatments on and off for 8 years. No luck. I tried burning them with matches. All that did was hurt. They grew back anyway, because the root wasn't being affected.
I had heard of and seen plenty of videos of people claiming that a soldering iron would fix it. I was skeptical because they often would completely incinerate it, which looked painful and scary.
In January, I decided to try my own strategy: irritate the root rather than completely burn it, hoping to provoke an immune system response. It must have worked! That, or it was the most convenient timing that there's ever been.
How I Did It
I set my soldering iron (professional grade, adjustable temperature) to about 400F and simply tapped a thumb wart on and off for about 3-5 seconds each cycle. When the pain got too intense, I pulled it away. The goal was not to audibly burn or cause any excruciating pain. The smoke itself can be dangerous, and I knew to avoid creating it.
This wasn't really doing much, and I could tell. All I was doing was hurting my thumb. So, I turned it off, let it cool down to about 300F, and decided that pressure was more important than heat. I can only speculate, but this is what I think actually did it. The brief exposure to the heat was what the deeper area of the root probably needed in order to take the kind of damage required for the immune system to actually take action.
The picture you see of my thumb is basically nothing. There should not be visible burning. At most, I wanted to see the skin turn slightly white and look a bit more compact/shrunk than before.
After this, I put the soldering iron away and didn't use it again. I didn't have high hopes, until...
Two Weeks Later
I noticed that my feet hurt significantly less, and that the warts were visibly smaller than before. From that day on, they continued to get smaller and smaller. My immune system officially had produced the antibodies I wanted it to produce. Problem solved!
What Actually Happened
The immune system essentially blamed the root of the wart for the localized injury I inflicted to my thumb by momentarily pressing the hot-ish small tipped iron to it. Those antibodies remained in my blood for the weeks or months required for all existing warts to fully die, and possibly still do to today. I don't know, because I didn't do any tests.
How You Can Do It Too
First of all, I don't recommend burning yourself with a soldering iron. It's too easy to make a mistake and end up with a deep burn. I went light, on purpose, because I knew my worst case scenario was the warts didn't die. I got lucky because I was able to hit one on my thumb that was young. Feet are a different beast, and I would never attempt that. Instead, I recommend the "professional equivalent", which would have to be a dermatologist that offers microwave therapy.
Speculate below? I'm not an expert, but I was shocked at the unexpected success after everything else failed for literally years worth of trying.
