Clear Away One-Step Wart Remover for Kids didn't work for us!
Written: Oct 09 '02 (Updated Oct 10 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Bright funky bandages are a kid pleaser!
Cons: Didn't work, painful, expensive
The Bottom Line: Save your child the pain and yourself $10 and buy a bottle of Castor Oil!
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| elainehn's Full Review: Clear Away One-Step Wart Remover for Kids |
Why are warts so distasteful to talk about? Such an embarrassment? I know they shouldn't be, but they really are, aren't they? Oh well, I'll suck it up and admit ... my precious, beautiful, sweet little Skye had a wart! ICK! YUCK! GROSS! EWWWWW! But thankfully, and in no part due to Clear Away One-Step Wart Remover for Kids it is now gone! YEAH!!!!!
Why did you purchase this medication?
Well, as stated my daughter had a wart. It was on her finger and though not hideous, it was noticeable and apparently the other kids at school (pre-k) had noticed too and were not terribly kind about it.
So I did a web search, read a few Epinions ... (the bulk of which were relatively positive at the time, or did I just overlook the bad?!?!?) And I set out to the store!
Would you purchase this again? Why or why not?
Heck NO!!!! They didn't remove the wart, they were expensive ($11.99), my daughter would cry and hide her hands when I tried to apply them, they didn't stay on well once applied ... and once again, they didn't remove the wart.
How does this medication compare to others you've used to treat the same condition?
Well to be honest, I don't think I've personally ever used another wart removal medication. I do, however, remember the old days of a smelly caustic liquid in a bottle similar to a nail polish bottle that you dabbed on the wart, and then covered with an oval bandage that, if memory serves, looked similar to a corn pad. My mother used this type remover on my little brother a couple times ... and it worked, though he howled and cried as the liquid burned his delicate young skin. After a few times, she could no longer stand to subject him to the treatment, and instead took him to a doctor to have the warts removed.
Speaking of doctors ... someone asked me why didn't I just take Skye to have her wart removed. I asked our pediatrician about it, and he suggested trying an OTC remedy first, but said that if it didn't work he'd be happy to do it. However with our insurance plan each visit is $20, if it took 2-3 visits as he said it might, to completely remove the wart, then it would cost us $40-$60 ... of course my precious girl is worth it, and had it been a painful or disfiguring illness, I would have spent any amount necessary in doctor bills to get it taken care of ... but at the same time, it's not a life or death concern, and I was willing to try an $11 remedy first.
How do you use the product?
You apply the Clear Away One-Step Wart Remover for Kids much like you would apply a band-aid on a boo-boo. The outer wrapping is a bit tougher to get into than on a bandage, but once you do open it, you are faced with a funky patterned, bright colored self adhesive bandage with a slightly enlarged circular pad that surrounds the medicated area. You peel the covering off the self-adhesive areas and apply the strip so that the medicated area is centered right over, and in contact with, the wart. You then wrap the ends of the bandage around the finger, or other body part, in the most secure manner you can.
Prior to applying the Clear Away One-Step Wart Remover , the area with the wart should be thoroughly cleaned and soaked in warm water for up to 5 minutes. The soaking is actually an essential part of making a product like this work. The wart has a fairly hard impenetrable surface, and the soaking allows the Salicylic Acid to actually 'get in' and eat away at the wart. I've even read suggestions that one use a clean emery board or fine sandpaper to rough up the surface of a wart before applying a wart remover ... but we didn't try this.
Unfortunately the soaking also makes the rest of the skin wet. Sure you can 'dry thoroughly' as the instructions state ... but the skin has absorbed moisture, it isn't just wet on the surface. Once you apply the bandage, the moisture that has soaked into the skin serves to weaken the hold of the self-adhesive strip significantly. In addition to this initial problem, what child do you know of who doesn't get their hands dirty and/or wet many times throughout the day? Handwashing, playing in water, swimming, sweating, etc. all seem to work against the adhesiveness of these strips. There is no way that one is going to stay on for 24 hours, much less 48!
Our 'solution' was to try to put these on immediately after bath-time at night, so that theoretically the strip would remain on from then until sometime the next day. Maybe only 12 hours, but maybe, possibly a little closer to an entire day.
But this brings up to ....
What are the particular side effects and interactions?
The darn things HURT!!!!! They made my baby cry ... they made me feel like a mean ole witch for trying to put them on her.
Some blemish medications use an approximately 2% Salicylic Acid solution ... and they 'tingle' when you apply them. So how would you imagine that a 40% Salicylic Acid solution might feel? Not too good, huh? Now imagine that instead of a fairly tough adult you are a 4 year old with delicate young skin. Now imagine that you are applying that 40% Salicylic Acid solution not only to delicate young skin, but repeatedly to an area that has already be subjected to the 40% Salicylic Acid solution and has begun to be eaten away and exposed! OUCH!!!!! Not a good thing!
Skye didn't whine much the first night we used the product. I think it was because it was new, and pretty, and the wart was not yet as exposed. Then after a few nights she said it hurt, she still let me apply one, and she left it on, but she grumbled a bit. Then after a few more days, she didn't want to use them at all. Her eyes teared up, she hid her hands, she BEGGED me not to put one on!!!! Oh the wretched guilt!!!! I was HURTING my baby!!!
And to top it all off, I really hadn't seen that much change in the wart at all. It wasn't smaller, it didn't look that different, except maybe a bit uglier.
Now I know, sometimes we can't give in, we have to be firm and make our kids do unpleasant things and not let them run over us. Skye isn't a demanding whiney brat ... she isn't usually difficult to convince to do the right thing ... she doesn't usually have tantrums, etc. But this was an issue that I did not feel I needed to 'force'. She wanted the wart gone, if the wart remover hurt badly enough for her not to want me to use it, then I decided it wasn't the right solution for us.
We gave up and left the wart alone for a couple of weeks. Then one day I was at my grandmother's house and she noticed the wart. She immediately got out a bottle of castor oil and told me to apply it each night at bed time and that the wart would go away within a week or two. I was doubtful, but willing to try it. (You can read more about this a little further below ... I figure I should finish my review of Clear Away One-Step Wart Remover for Kids first.)
What did you particularly like or dislike about it?
See above for all the dislikes. For the 'likes' ... well it's a much easier application process than the old fashioned bottles of liquid wart remover. The strips are attractive to kids, and the adult version comes in a less conspicuous clear version. An older child could even handle the application process themselves.
How quickly does the medicine take effect? How long does one dose last?
Well, for us it didn't work ... but the box contains 14 strips ... which if applied every 48 hours as directed would last up to 4 weeks, though you could stop using them sooner if the wart was removed sooner.
Warnings & Ingredients:
Warnings!: for external use only
DO NOT USE
- if you are a diabetic
- on irritated skin or any area that is infected of reddened
- on moles, birthmarks, warts with hair growing out of them, genital warts, or warts on the face or mucous membranes
- on children under 2 years of unless directed by a doctor
- if you have poor blood circulation
Stop use and ask a doctor if discomfort lasts
KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN if swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away.
Active Ingredient: Salicylic Acid 40%
Inactive Ingredients: antioxidant (CAS 991-84-4), iron oxides, mineral oil, petroleum hydrocarbon resin, silicon dioxide, synthetic polyisoprene rubber, talc
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Now for a bit of old-wives-tale folk remedy type wart removal information ... this is NOT intended to be medical advice, I am not suggesting anyone do this if they are uncomfortable with it at all, but I honestly can't imagine what harm it could do ... and it WORKED for us ... QUICKLY!!!
We applied CASTOR OIL directly to the wart each night at bed time. No pain, no chemical ingredients, just pure old fashioned castor oil.
Within days the wart turned really ugly and black ... we began to cover it with a band-aid during the day just for cosmetic reasons. We continued the treatment each night. Within a week the wart appeared to be breaking into cells or pieces ... it was no longer a solid 'bump' but looked sort of like lots of closely packed little cylinders. I have no idea what they are technically called, and I haven't found anything on the web that explains it, but each little cylinder had a dark speck at the center. On some of these the dark speck (or 'seed' as my grandmother called them) would begin to stand up and seemed to be working it's way out of the wart.
At this point I used clean sterilized tweezers to pull the 'seeds' that were standing up from the wart. If they didn't pull out easily, I stopped. I didn't pull flesh or skin ... just the dark brownish black seeds. It was sort of like pulling out a briar, or tweezing your eyebrows ... but on an ugly wart! Sometimes Skye was patient and would let me pull several, sometimes she wasn't, and I didn't push it. Then one night after her bath, as I dried her off, I noticed that it looked like the whole wart was just sort of hanging or dangling from her finger. Almost all of the 'base' of the wart was loose. Without making a big deal of it, I held it with the towel and yanked. The entire wart just came right off ... there was a tiny bit of blood which stopped almost instantly and she hasn't had another wart since.
Sounds freaky, and I'm almost embarrassed to post it ... but I'm open to 'natural' old fashioned remedies ... and it worked ... a tiny inexpensive bottle of castor oil did what an $11 painful medication couldn't!
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
elainehn
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Member: Elaine HN
Location: Near Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 221
Trusted by: 175 members
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