My plantar wart treatment experience 1 - Freezing (Cryotherapy)

This is my plantar wart experience (pictures included).  I am going to be honest and add pictures along the way.  I googled searched a lot at the beginning trying to find someone that chronicled their experience but did not find any worthwhile.  Most were basic posts that were leading to a product they wanted to sell.  This is just a blog of my plantar wart experience.  I hope it helps someone! 

     I took off my sock one day and happen to notice a white circular area on my foot that was raised and I realized I had a wart.  A plantar wart to be specific (I thought all warts were the same).  Plantar warts are harder to get rid of because they are pushed further into the skin by being on the bottom of your foot.  This wart was large so I decided to go to my family doctor who is a general practitioner MD.  He suggested that we freeze it.  He went and got his canister, returned to the office and sprayed my wart with three short bursts of the freezing agent. 
     The first blast did not hurt but felt cold and weird.  The 2nd blast hurt but was bearable.  3rd blast hurt even more and I was glad it was done.  He told me to keep it covered until the blister formed and fell off by itself.  By late that night I could see the blister forming and filling with fluid.  It stayed that way for about 3 days and it appeared to have broken because the fluid was not there anymore.  It took about 12-14 days before the blister dried up and came off.

     First treatment was unsuccessful.  Where the blister was had nice new skin that had formed but the area of the wart was still there and still the same size.  It seemed to me that the top part of the wart came off with the blister but the majority of the wart was still there and laughing at me.
     I returned to the doctor and he said it can take a few freezes to eventually kill and remove the wart.  He repeated the exact same freezing process and I experienced the exact same results again for the 2nd round of treatment.  Blister formed, broke, drained and about two weeks later it came off.  Nice new skin again but the wart appeared the same size and still smirking at me as if to say "Is that all you got?"  Second treatment unsuccessful. 
    I did a lot of google searching regarding the freezing of plantar warts and found mixed results - mostly unsuccessful.  It seemed that the majority were unsuccessful using cryotherapy on plantar warts but I did find a few that said it worked after many freezes.  So I returned for 3rd freeze and got the same results again.  Darn it.  Here are the pictures from my 3rd freeze: 

Here is the picture from my 3rd freeze after the blister was removed: 

You can see the white core in the middle - that's the wart and it started growing again fast. 

     I decided to go back for a 4th freeze and also go back sooner then 2 weeks this time.  I returned after 10 days and also the doctor this time decided to trim the top of the wart off before freezing it.  These two changes made for a better result but still unsuccessful in removing the wart.  He also froze the wart with 4 blasts this time instead of just 3.  Between the shorter return time, trimming of the wart and the extra blast of freezing agent my end result was better but not removed.  When the blister came off the wart was visibly smaller but still present. 

Here is the picture of the 4th freeze:

Here is the picture of the 4th freeze after the blister was removed: 

Here is a picture of the blister that came off from above: 

I returned to the doctor happy about seeing progress and thinking maybe one last freeze would do it.  He decided that he would just trim it this time and he wanted me to leave it alone.  I'm not sure why but he was optimistic that it was healing and would be going away now.  Reluctantly, I left and hoped I was on my way to being plantar wart free.  That's not how it went.  After about 2 weeks I looked at my wart and it was back to it's original size - maybe a little bigger.  The doctor then recommended I go to a podiatrist and have it cut out. 

Here is what happened next: