Modern Home Remedies: Duct Tape for Warts and Other Things

When we think about home remedies, most of us think about things like chicken soup. We think about cures that were passed down from generation to generation to solve common health problems in the home. We think about the things that our mothers told us to do when we got sick. Maybe we even think about the natural cures and herbal medications that are increasingly popular on the market today. What we don’t usually think of is duct tape.

That’s right, this common household item has been known to cure more than one ailment. How is this a home remedy? Well, a home remedy is defined as any form of treatment that uses commonly-available items as a cure. In modern homes, duct tape is a commonly available item. And, according to quite a few people, it can be used to treat certain conditions.

Duct Tape for Warts and Skin Tags

The most common home remedy that people will use duct tape for is the removal of warts or skin tags. Believe it or not, studies have actually been done showing that duct tape might be a more effective treatment for wart removal than some of the most common medical treatments that are available.

To treat warts with duct tape, people are generally advised to do the following:

·      Apply a piece of duct tape over the wart. Make sure that it is tight around the wart and secure against the skin. People who have a lot of hair on the skin around the area might want to shave so that the tape doesn’t stick to the hair, ripping it out when it’s time to remove the duct tape.

·      Leave the duct tape in place for approximately one week. You may need to cover the area with a plastic bag to prevent the tape from getting wet when bathing (otherwise it could fall off). Alternatively, you can replace the duct tape with a fresh piece if water from showering does cause it to fall off before the week is up.

·      Remove the piece of duct tape. Be aware of the fact that removing the tape may be slightly painful as it tugs on your skin. Soak the wart in warm water. Use a nail file to file down the wart. This shouldn’t be painful. If it is, you should stop and continue to soak the wart in the warm water. Leave the wart alone to dry off and absorb air throughout the night.

·      Apply a new piece of duct tape to be left on for approximately another seven days. Repeat this entire process. You can continue repeating the process until the wart is completely gone; it should take one to two months for the wart to disappear.

Why would you want to use duct tape as a cure for warts rather than using something that isn’t a strange home remedy? Well, there are a few reasons:

·      Duct tape may be just as effective or may effective at getting rid of warts than the other options that are available to you.

·      Medicinal cures for warts are expensive. There are not too many great cures for warts. Depending on the wart, you might burn them off or freeze them off. You could get cosmetic surgery to remove the warts. All of these options are expensive. Duct tape isn’t expensive at all.

·      Other cures can take a long time. The duct tape removal process generally takes less time than other methods of wart removal although success varies from person to person.

People who have successfully removed warts with duct tape say that the same home remedy could be applied to removing skin tags. In general, it takes less time to remove a skin tag than to remove a wart.

Duct Tape for Setting Broken Bones

Although duct tape is most commonly used as a home remedy for wart removal, it can be used as a home remedy to treat other problems as well. One of the more severe problems that you might treat with duct tape is a broken bone. When you have a broken bone, you often have to create a splint to prevent the area from moving around. This prevents pain. Duct tape can be used to create a solid splint. You need to find some other item that will serve as a solid structure for holding the bone in place and then use the duct tape to wrap it together. For example, if you break an arm, you might use a piece of wood to hold the arm in place and then duct tape the wood and the arm together to create an effective splint. Notably, this remedy is most often used among campers and people who cannot get to a hospital right away. It is always recommended that in the case of such a severe problem you use the home remedy only as a means of treating the immediate condition until you can see a doctor to get proper care. However, if for one reason or another you actually aren’t going to see a doctor, this can be a good home remedy for dealing with a broken bone or even a major strain.

So Is Duct Tape Really a Good Home Remedy?

Most people wouldn’t recommend duct tape as a major home remedy. It’s not quite the same as chicken soup or herbal teas for curing common ailments. However, it’s a home-based cure that can be used to treat certain conditions. It might not be a cure that you use all that often but it wouldn’t hurt to keep some duct tape near your first aid kit just in case!