No parent likes to see his or her child in pain - whether it's physical pain, emotional pain, or spiritual pain. I'm no exception. Little did I know that, although I had the best of intentions, my actions would cause my son to suffer. And it was all because of a small, common wart (also known as verruca vulgaris). Here is the story of his (and my) odyssey.



When I saw that my eight-year-old son had a small wart on the knuckle of his index finger, I was only mildly concerned. I remembered that, when I was a child, I had two warts - one at the center of my thumb and one on another finger. I recalled going to the doctor and having him burn off the warts. To this day, I can still remember that distinct smell. My story ended there; the common warts were gone and never returned.

Unfortunately, my son's journey was much more convoluted. I pointed out his wart to his pediatrician at my son's regular check-up. The doctor told me that warts typically go away on their own, but that it could take up to a couple of years. He offered to use liquid nitrogen to freeze the wart, which would then separate from the underlying tissue and fall off. I weighed the tradeoff between the pain of the procedure and getting rid of the wart, and consented to the procedure.

The liquid nitrogen was painful, but my son was a trooper. A large blister formed, popped, and eventually healed - but the wart was still there. I then decided to go the over-the-counter route and tried salicylic acid. It was hard to keep up with the twice-daily routine; after all, a little boy is either always getting his hands dirty or washing them. After several months of on-again, off-again treatment, the wart seemed to be growing.

That led to two additional trips to the pediatrician. Both times, the doctor used liquid nitrogen. Both times, my son bore the pain. And, after all was said and done, the wart had multiplied to a full-scale case of verrucae vulgares, with common warts in a cauliflower bloom all over his knuckle.

At that point, the pediatrician said he couldn't do any more for my son, and referred me to a dermatologist - specifically, to the wart clinic at my HMO. There, a nurse whose specialty was treating common warts applied what she called "bug juice" to the area. I now know that "bug juice" is cantharidin, which actually does come from a beetle. That resulted in a huge blister, incredible pain, but no cure. So, we went back for a round of "super bug juice," supposedly a more concentrated form of cantharidin. Another huge blister, and even more pain - especially when my son scraped his finger against the table and the entire blister and surrounding skin peeled back. The bottom line? When it healed, the warts were even larger.

That was when I said, "No more," and started to do research on the Internet. By this time, my son was 11 years old, and increasingly self-conscious about the warts. He was even getting teased at school.

Ultimately, I found a wonderful website that made the case for using natural essential oils to treat both the symptom (common warts) and the underlying issue (an immature immune system). Within four weeks of starting the treatment with a special essential oil blend, my son's warts had disappeared.

If I had known then what I knew now, I never would have put my son through the nightmare of endless rounds of doctor's visits and painful treatments. Instead, I would have saved heartache, time, and money by starting with the essential oils and letting my son's body heal itself.