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Is it possible that Verruca Needling would cause a patient to be unwell with virus like symptoms after the treatement ?

 

Depends what you mean by "virus like symptoms". The aim of all non-genital wart treatment - including needling - is to first initiate an innate immune response, which should (but often doesn`t due to anti-inflammatory proteins emitted by the virus) activate the Langerhan Cells to process the viral antigens and present them to the T-Cells. These lymphocytes then mount a secondary, adaptive response, which is a global targeted immune response to eradicate the virus and (hopefully) provide future (acquired) immunity against that subtype of HPV.

It is during an initial, innate immune response (to any detected infection) that some people may feel unwell with a runny nose, fever and general lethargy - rather like that experienced after a vaccine. This innate response period usually only lasts for about four to seven days. So, if they are experiencing symptoms after that time, it is more than likely an entirely different infection they have acquired and not related to the previous needling.

 

In all the years I have been doing verrucae needling, about 25 years, I have never seen a patient develop "virus like symptoms" from verrucae needling. Probably a coincidence.

However, that being said, I did one winter day about 10 years ago, have a male patient, about 65 years old, accuse me of "giving him a cold", because the first day I saw him in my office I had the sniffles and a slight cough. He didn't seem to think it was somehow possible that all the other people he interacted with during that time period that had the same symptoms as him in our community, could have also been responsible for his "cold".

Moral of the story? Patients will blame you for anything they can think of if their imagination is good enough.

 

Sorry bit of the subject but was learning how to tattoo (a drunken bet) and had the idea that the pins/needles could be used with the machine to provide a good needling effect on VPs.
The 15 mag needles have a cluster of 15 small pins and can be set at a regulated depth of strike/cut.
Havent tried it as retired from podiatry but wondered it any one has done it.