Medical Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy is a technique that uses an extremely cold liquid or instrument to freeze a lesion or a growth. Healing occurs after the scab formation and falling of the scab. Cryotherapy poses little risk and is well-tolerated by patients. There is a small risk of discoloration of the skin (may be long term), scarring, infection, and damage to underlying skin, nerve and tissue. The most common effect is slight pain at the time of cryotherapy then followed by redness, swelling and in a small number of cases blistering. These minor symptoms usually last for about 24 to 48 hours. Pigmentary changes, both hypopigmentation (lightening of the skin) and hyperpigmentation (darkening of the skin) are possible after cryotherapy. Both generally last a few months, but can be long lasting. It may take several treatments to achieve visible results and at time the lesions may return requiring further treatments.

Warts are caused by a virus called the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Warts are diagnosed by clinical examination (sight) rather than a specific test and we do not test for presence of the HPV virus as a huge percentage of the population would test positive even though many people will never develop warts. It may be that you have the virus, but unless you develop warts which are a symptom of the virus it is difficult to know. The virus could have been passed to you from your ex-partner or vice versa.

It is always advisable to have a regular sexual health screen as many STI’s are easily treated but as they display no signs or symptoms, may go undiagnosed and can lead to more complicated problems.