Modern (?!?) Medicine

So yesterday I went to the dermatologist for my yearly skin cancer check. While I was there I mentioned to her that I had recently developed a little wart -- a first for me -- on the inside of my left index finger and asked what I could do to get rid of it. She froze it with a little liquid nitrogen and wrote me a prescription for salicylic acid, told me to put a little of the salicylic acid on the wart each night before bed and then put a little tape around it and it should disappear in a couple of weeks. No problem I thought, I can handle that.

So I go to the compounding pharmacy -- another first, you apparently can't just walk into your local Walgreens and expect them to mix you up some acid -- and the nice pharmacist lady fills the prescription for me and asks me if the dermatologist instructed me on the use. I said yes and told her what the doctor had said about the tape. The pharmacist got this really funny look on her face, smiled and asked, "Did she specify what kind of tape?" I tried to remember and decided that the doctor had not been specific and I was just going to use regular medical tape. WRONG! The nice pharmacist lady informed me that I was to use duct tape! Duct tape? For medicinal purposes?? Apparently so! She said that the tape irritates the skin and causes an immune system reaction which causes your body to attack the wart, assisting the acid in killing it off. All of this money spent on medicine and technology and the easiest and most painless remedy could be found at my local hardware store. Who knew!!