Diy sticky solution for a daughter’s 20- year battle with verrucas

30- year- old daughter has had verrucas on the balls of her feet for more years than I remember. There are about 20 in all and I have tried every remedy you can buy, to no success. When she was about 10, the same problem occurred and our doctor prescribed several large jars of clear liquid that she steeped her feet in every night and this solved the problem but nobody seems to know what this was. Have you any ideas?

only liquid I can think this might have been is potassium permanganate solution, which was developed as a disinfectant in the mid- 19th century. Soaking the skin in a diluted solution of it can be used to treat superficial infection, such as athlete’s foot or infected eczema, but it is not used much now because it can cause irritation and brown staining of the skin and nails.

Neat potassium permanganate is a striking purple colour, but when diluted it is light pink, which doesn’t tally with your description of a clear liquid. So if any readers have any ideas what else this clear liquid could have been, please let me know!

Verrucas are warts that grow into the skin from the pressure of walking, and are caused by becoming infected with certain strains of the human papillomavirus, completely different to the strains that cause cervical and other cancers.

The “paint” treatments you can buy from chemists are based on caustic acids, such as salicylic acid, which burn away the infected areas of skin.

They need to be applied every day after the top layer has been filed away and can take weeks and sometimes months to make any difference.

The other type is a spray containing liquid carbon dioxide. The aim is to kill the infected cells by freezing them. However, it evaporates very quickly as soon as it is out of the can and, in my experience, it really doesn’t work very well.

Doctors can use liquid nitrogen, which is much colder and more effective, but even with this, several treatments are often required. Currently many practices are not offering a “freezing service” as they are prioritising their time to services that have been delayed by the pandemic, such as smears and diabetic checks.

I recommend you try treating the warts by covering them with duct tape. Cut a piece that will cover the verrucas, stick it on and leave for six days. If it falls off, replace it with a new one. On the seventh day, remove the tape, soak the foot in warm water and file off dead skin with an emery board.

Leave the tape off for 24 hours, then start the process again the following morning. Keep doing this for at least four weeks and hopefully the verrucas should all have either shrunk, or disappeared.

I am 61 and a long- standing blood donor. My group is O Rh negative with D antibodies. I am not on any medication. I have had a letter from the Blood Transfusion Service to say I have developed red cell antibodies and in future my blood will only be suitable for laboratory work. The letter says the antibodies do not affect me and there’s no need to consult my GP. I am unable to find out much about this blood cells have proteins on their surface, known as antigens, and the plasma ( the liquid part of blood) contains antibodies that can attack certain antigens if they are present. The most important antigens are those of the ABO system, which determine your blood group, and the separate D, or rhesus antigens. They are determined by the genes you inherit from your parents.

If you have type A antigens ( group A blood) you will have anti- B antibodies, while those with type B blood will have anti- A antibodies.

Those with type AB blood don’t have any antibodies in their plasma, while those with neither A or B antigen – known as type O – have both anti- A and anti- B antibodies.

Most people also have rhesus or D antigens on their red blood cells and are rhesus positive, but three in 20 people do not, so are rhesus negative.

Unlike the ABO system, those who are D or rhesus negative do not usually have any anti- D antibodies in their blood. Instead, their formation is usually stimulated when rhesus negative blood comes into contact with rhesus positive blood.

The most important example of when this can occur is in pregnancy. If a mother who is rhesus negative has a baby who is rhesus positive ( from a rhesus positive father) then the mother’s immune system will produce anti- rhesus antibodies, which can attack and destroy the baby’s blood cells.

This is rarely a problem in the first pregnancy, but without treatment it can be serious in subsequent pregnancies as the mother’s immune system is sensitised and large numbers of antibodies are produced.

This is why all women who are rhesus negative, whose partner is rhesus positive, are given an injection of anti- D immunoglobulin to mop up any potential rhesus positive blood cells from the foetus that may have spilled over into the mothers blood.

If you have a blood transfusion, it is vital that the blood you receive is compatible with your own, as anti- A and anti- B antibodies can attack any red cells containing these antigens, making them clump. Similarly, those who are rhesus negative should always receive rhesus negative.

There are known to be several variations of the rhesus antigens and though it is rare, some people have a type that stimulates the body to produce weak anti- D antibodies. As you have not had a blood transfusion, this may be what happened. Though it will not cause any damage to your blood cells, they could damage someone else, which is why your blood cannot be used for donation.

If you have a health question for Dr Leonard, email her in confidence at yourhealth@ express. co. uk. Dr Leonard regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence or reply to everyone.