By Peggy O'Farrell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

You really can fix anything with duct tape: It even works as a wart remover, proved a Cincinnati researcher.

Dr. Rick Focht III's study made national headlines last month when it appeared in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

MORE USES

Ideas for duct tape, culled from www.ducktapeguys.com: • Patching cracked refrigerator shelves or creating "slings" for pop bottles on fridge shelves. • Patching rafts, air mattresses, float toys, etc. • Animal control: Tying wild hogs and muzzling `gators. (No, seriously . ..) • Car repairs: Bumpers, mufflers and all manner of knobs and handles, not to mention windows and windshields. • Fashion: Purses, belts, bracelets, shoes and even a prom dress. • Water-proofing just about anything. • First aid: It stands in for bandages, sutures and splints. • Garden helper: Staking tomatoes, splinting branches, grafting trees and plants.

The study finds one more use for the hardware store standby that can be utilized to create prom dresses or hold a bumper on a vehicle.

The idea of using duct tape to treat warts isn't new; Dr. Focht was just the first to conduct a study. He heard about the practice while working in a clinic at Madigan Army Medical Center near Tacoma, Wash., where doctors usually used liquid nitrogen to "freeze" warts.

"The kids didn't want to get their warts frozen," Dr. Focht says. "It does burn. It can cause a blister."

Duct tape seemed like a "less-threatening" option, he says. And it even comes in colors besides gray.

The tape worked "a little bit better" than liquid nitrogen, Dr. Focht says: 85 percent of the patients treated with duct tape got rid of their warts, compared with 60 percent of the patients who received liquid nitrogen.

The process is simple: Cut a piece of duct tape the size of the wart, place it on the wart and leave it for six days. Remove the tape, soak the wart in water (no, you don't have to collect it from a tree stump at midnight under a full moon). File off the dead skin with a pumice stone or emery board. The next day, put another piece of tape on the wart and repeat the process for up to two months.

Dr. Focht and his colleagues theorize that the tape irritates the skin and triggers an immune response, which kills the virus that caused the wart.

Duct Tape Guys

Tim Nyberg, half of the duo "Tim and Jim, The Duct Tape Guys," always figured the duct tape "cut off the oxygen and smothered the wart."

Fans of the Duct Tape Guys have posted the wart remedy on their Web site (www.ducktapeguys.com) for years, Mr. Nyberg says - though most of their readers recommended leaving the tape on for three days, not six. "But I guess it has to come from a doctor for people to believe it," he says.

Mr. Nyberg and his brother-in-law, Jim Berg, have written five books and nine calendars on duct tape. Their Web site includes tips on other medical uses for duct tape, including using it in place of sutures for serious wounds - but only until the patient can get to a hospital. Other fans report using it to splint broken fingers and toes or to hold catheters in place. The Duct Tape Guys recommend first lubing up with their other favorite cure-all, WD-40, to keep the tape from removing skin and hair.

"We attribute all of this to duct tape not coming with any directions," Mr. Nyberg says. "If they put directions inside the roll, where would we be?"

Stops heat leaks

Plumbing contractor John Jones of Jones Brothers Plumbing in Norwood uses duct tape for non-medical purposes: capping pipes, covering floor drains and taping down electrical cords and cables. Fellow contractors even use it for its official purpose, he says: sealing joints between heat ducts.

Mr. Jones wasn't aware duct tape could be used to cure warts - though he's seen it used for lots of other things.

"I have a wart on my finger," he says. "Maybe I'll try it."