Plantar Warts (also called Verruca) are small, hard and usually painful bumps on the bottom of your foot, that are caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

Plantar warts can be spread by direct contact with a surface someone else’s verruca has touched (eg. floors, socks, shoes).

Children tend to be most commonly affected, due to their immune system not being fully mature, which means they are not able to provide as strong a healing response as an adult.

Warts and corns present in a similar appearance on the foot, so the right diagnosis will help have you back to your best sooner.

If you have a corn, some signs are:

Pain to press directly on the corn, not as much to squeeze on the sides,
Yellow coloured lump (suggesting dead callus skin),
Located on an area of high weightbearing only (eg. plantar heel, ball of foot, bottom of toes).
The lines on the sole of your foot move through the corn, not around it.

If you have a plantar wart, some signs are:

A freckly appearance with small black spots on the skin (haemorrhage, dried blood) in the wart tissue,
Pain when squeezing the sides of the wart,
Bleeding when the callus above the wart is gently debrided (living tissue is present, not just dead yellow callus skin),
The wart has a halo ring around it, the natural lines on sole of your foot move around the wart.

Plantar Warts (Verruca)