The LMD Podiatry Podcast
Board certified in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery, Dr. Dabakaroff completed her training in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Dr. Dabakaroff has been published in textbooks and has done research for various foot conditions. Dr. Dabakaroff brings with her new methods, both surgical and non-surgical, for treating multiple foot and ankle ailments.
Dr. Dabakaroff launched a podcast to educate and keep her community informed about various aspects of podiatry. Her goal is to offer a valuable resource to people while establishing new connections both within and outside her community.
To learn more, visit: LMDpodiatry.com or contact (954) 680-7133
The LMD Podiatry Podcast
EP #19: Swift Laser - The Wart Treatment Revolution
Revolutionary treatment options don't come along often in podiatry, but the Swift microwave laser technology is changing everything we thought we knew about treating plantar warts.
Dr. Lauren DaBakaroff takes us on a fascinating deep dive into this groundbreaking technology that's transforming how podiatrists approach stubborn warts. After years of frustration watching patients suffer through painful traditional treatments only to see their warts return, Dr. D explains why she invested in this game-changing solution that harnesses the body's own immune system to fight the virus naturally.
The Swift laser works differently than anything that's come before. Rather than burning or cutting away infected tissue, this microwave technology delivers controlled heat to stimulate an immune response, with absolutely zero downtime. Patients walk in, receive their 5-pulse treatment that takes mere minutes, and walk right back out to resume normal activities—even running or high-impact sports. No wound care, no bandages, no restrictions.
Dr. D shares remarkable success stories, including children whose warts disappeared after a single treatment and patients with over 20 warts seeing dramatic improvement in just one month. Perhaps most compelling is how this treatment benefits those with resistant, recurring warts who've tried everything else without success. Beyond plantar warts, the technology shows promise for other skin conditions, making it a versatile addition to modern podiatry practices.
Ready to explore this no-downtime solution for stubborn warts? Visit LMDPodiatry.com or call 954-680-7133 to schedule a consultation and discover if the Swift laser is right for you.
Welcome to the LMD Podiatry Podcast. Trust us to get back on your feet. Here's your host, Dr Lauren DeBakeroff.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, hello everyone and welcome back, doc. Always a pleasure to see you.
Speaker 3:Hi Jeremy.
Speaker 2:Yes, hi. So we've talked about warts before. Today. We're going to talk about Swift and no, no, no, no, all you Swifties out there. We're not talking about Taylor Swift. We're talking about the Swift wart laser treatment that you offer at your office. So for those that weren't tuned in on the last episode and didn't hear about it, why don't you start there? Talk a little bit about what the Swift wart laser treatment is and how it differs from your, I guess, kind of standard garden variety treatments of the past.
Speaker 3:So before I go into those details, I kind of want to talk about warts in general so that people get a little of a refresher. As you know, warts are a virus of the skin and traditionally what all dermatologists and podiatrists alike have done throughout the years is burn the wart in some way or form or fashion. How do we do that? You know, we use chemicals, we use lasers, stronger chemicals, stronger lasers, all different types of things, and it's just cautery, basically always constantly trying to burn it with either an acid or a chemical, and then eventually the wart tends to rise to the surface and then it stops living off your skin and then you basically kill the work. Um, and those in the past have worked. Sometimes some are painful, some are not. I used to cut out the warts because sometimes patients just had so much pain, so I would just literally numb up the skin and core out the whole entire work it on out, it on out of there, huh.
Speaker 3:And it gets rid of it, but then sometimes it comes back and that was starting to really annoy me. And then I've been researching the Swift laser for a while, and it's a new technology that's been out there just for the past couple of years and I've been reading studies about it and I finally got my hands on one, and it's an amazing laser and and and it works a lot differently. Um, so what it is? It's a microwave laser and what it does is it heats up to the wart to a very high temperature and then what happens is, over time, the body amounts an immune response to it and then, all of a sudden, the wart kind of just disappears.
Speaker 2:So, yes, interesting, I'm trying to, okay. So it heats up to a very high temperature with this mic, with this uh, this laser and over time. Can you just just dig a little bit deeper into that, because I'm trying to parse it out? How does it actually do that?
Speaker 3:Okay, so it's a handheld laser. There's no downtime, I don't have to scrape the dead skin from the wart, I don't have to numb you up or give you any needles. And then what this laser does? I literally just apply the tip of the laser to the wart and I have to pulse the wart five times. Now every setting is different for, like depending on the location of the wart, how old, like if it's a child or it's an adult. So, based on that, you apply the number of watts. So, like there's watt settings, like there's, they start from two watts all the way up to 10 watts, so every person can tolerate a certain amount of wattage.
Speaker 2:So the bigger the body mass or the bigger the weight, you guys should get more wattage, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, essentially so. It's not like so. When you think of a laser, you think of oh, a laser is going to burn you or something. You know what I mean. So a lot of people think of lasers like that. This is a completely different type of laser. This is a microwave laser. It sends a pulse deep into the tissue, deep into the skin, and it penetrates so deep that the body doesn't even know what to do with the wart at that point. So it obliterates the wart no needles, no cutting, no shaving, no acids, no chemicals. It just heats it up. Most people need about two treatments, Some people need three or four. Each one's spaced about a month apart. And then what happens is once that heat, once that heat inside the wart rises to a certain temperature, the body reacts to it and then your immune system fights off the wart and then the wart falls off. I actually recently did it on two children and I was actually impressed. It actually went away after one treatment.
Speaker 2:Like right after the treatment, or they did the treatment and then they came back to see you again for a follow-up.
Speaker 3:I did the laser on them and I told them there's no downtime, you don't have to put any medicine, you don't have to do anything, just live your life. And then they came back. Four weeks later, the wart was gone. It was like magically disappeared.
Speaker 2:I like it Is. It is that surprise, like the patients that have had success with this, is this surprising for them? And how quickly, how quickly this works and how tolerable it is, especially those that like what about patients that have had outbreaks for their whole life? Right, it's not just one isolated incident, it's. It's they've had recurring issues. Have you had a patient like that that has tried this and they're like blown away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have enough. I have a few. I have one patient. He has like 20 warts on his foot right and you do it. I did it to him and most of them have gone away after one month. That's fantastic, it's cool stuff. It's just remember, it's a virus and something's going on in your immune system that your body can't seem to fight off this virus. Actually, there are studies that show that, like people who have resistant, recalcitrant warts, they get that vaccine, the Gardasil. They gave him the Gardasil vaccine and it actually helps calm it down. So there's like it's all related to the immune system. And what's great about the Swift laser is that heat in the wart. The body starts like waking up and saying, hey, what's going on in here? And it just finally amounts an immune response to the wart and the wart falls off.
Speaker 2:How does the SWIFT change the? I guess the treatment conversation for you mentioned kids. You've tried it on them and maybe, like athletes, people that are on their feet all day Is this something that you're able to administer Like? Is every patient that walks in your door that has a wart, whether, again, they're on the feet all the day, whether they're not on their feet all the day? Is this a treatment that's applicable for everyone, or is it really still a case by case?
Speaker 3:So it's applicable for everyone, mostly because there's no downtime whatsoever. All I have to do is apply the laser to the wart and there's no downtime. You could walk. You don't have to keep your wart covered, you could just continue on with your life. There's absolutely no downtime. The only thing that you can feel is you feel a very hot pinch. When I do the laser on your foot, people who cannot tolerate that hot pinch on their skin, I will give them a peripheral nerve block. I basically numb up the nerve that's going to the work, and maybe then you need an injection. But I've only had to do it once because my patient was extremely sensitive and couldn't tolerate any pain. So, yeah, that's all you feel. There's no downtime, I don't have to. There's no creams, there's no nothing.
Speaker 2:Nothing. So you go in. You go in, you get this laser treatment done, you walk out, you can go back to. If you're a high active individual, let's say for me, I'm a runner, I have a ward on my foot. I come in, I get the laser, I get lasered, I go home, I could run that same day.
Speaker 3:I don't have to have nothing, no downtime, I just go right back to it, no downtime whatsoever. You just go on with your life and let the laser do the work. Your body will kill the wart, everything's fine. Whereas when I used to cut them out, you had downtime. For, like, what is downtime when I used to cut out the warts, especially the ones on the bottom of the feet? I will sell patients, you know, limit how much you walk and you have, you know, the.
Speaker 3:The hole that I just created in your foot has to close from the inside out. So you really just have to wait and let your body heal. And there is downtime. You have an open wound. When I cut out the work, it takes about two to three weeks for it to close. And I always tell my patients the more you walk on your foot, the longer it's going to take for the hole to close. So that is, you know, when you do stuff like that, there is a lot of downtime. This laser I just applied five pulses to that laser to the ward, or many warts as many as you have, and that's it. And then you just wait for your body to kill it. And it does and it's really cool and it's really designed for the more difficult cases, because it it is, it's an immune system issue sounds like a no-brainer to me.
Speaker 2:I mean you said, this is relatively new.
Speaker 3:This, this technology is around for a couple of years but people are slowly like there's. There's only like three people in Broward County that have this laser and I want to why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:If it's something, it seems like it's becoming the gold standard in this kind of thing, the golden standard.
Speaker 3:Yet because a insurances don't cover it yet, ah no, and it's out of pocket. Right, it's out of pocket. It's new technology that works, but unfortunately science is speeding up and you know the, the medicare and the insurance guidelines are not is it still considered like experimental treatment, I wonder.
Speaker 2:In my mind I'm thinking something that's as effective as this. Why would it not be covered under insurance other than the fact that they don't want the problems to be cured, so they can keep coming back and billing more?
Speaker 3:Well, no, that's another conversation for another time.
Speaker 3:The big pharma. You know conversation, listen, I'm in the business of getting patients healed and helping them feel better, and the reason why I acquired this laser is because I was sick of seeing all those nasty warts and shaving them, burning them, scraping them, cutting them out, and I would sometimes I would see that they would come back, like I actually had a patient. I saw her today. I cut her wart out and it came back like another one. I cut it out like another word appeared right next door to it and I'm like, oh man. And then she said I told her about the laser. She's like why didn't you have it before? And I'm like I just got the laser in January. I'm sorry and I finally like I just I got it because I want my patients to feel better. I want everyone to have no pain in their feet. I don't want them to have warts. By the way, it's not only indicated for warts, they're also indicated for molluscum contagiosa.
Speaker 2:Say who-to to-tang-ee-what-so what is it?
Speaker 3:There are all these different. There's a lot of skin conditions that it's indicated for, not just warts. There are, like, different skin conditions that usually a dermatologist diagnoses, and I do see those things on the feet. There is one common diagnosis that it works for. It's called the intractable porocharitosis. It's basically a callus that has an eye in it and a lot of people have no idea till today. There's studies. They don't know why people get these little calluses on their feet with a little hard core in the center and, um, it is an immune system related thing and I've used the laser on that as well and it goes away and it's pretty cool yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:I I've had on my mind lately about regenerative medicine, regenerative healing, and this laser sounds like it's just that right. It's basically going in there and it's stimulating the body's natural reaction, natural immune system to act as a defense against the wart, which is obviously always optimal over any kind of invasive type of procedure where you're going in and cutting things or burning things, because then you're creating additional trauma for the body, which reacts in other ways that are negative. So I love these non-invasive. I just see that in the future, as technology advances and AI advances, there's just going to be more and more of this for treating all sorts of conditions, really harnessing the body's natural ability to heal itself from within, and that should really be the goal with any kind of treatment. Right, how can we stimulate the body to do what it does best?
Speaker 3:Yes, that's my motto Jeremy, I mean, when it comes to all these types of things, a lot of times, when things aren't healing, with patients and I'm like, listen, your body's not healing itself. I don't know what to tell you because you're not listening to what I say. But in general unfortunately I don't want to talk about should I bring this up or not Our bodies and our generation have a really hard time detoxing because of the food. We're not eating the right foods, the food is not nutritious anymore, our soil is devoid of nutrients and you could look into it, but it is true and that's why it's really hard for us to fight disease and different bacteria, diseases, viruses. And our body is an amazing thing. It's a temple and we just have to nourish it with the right stuff.
Speaker 3:I've never had a wart. I don't walk barefoot, but I'm sure anyone can get a wart Anytime you walk barefoot, shared surfaces kids get it, adults get it. It's a skin condition. It can happen to anyone. They're very painful when they're on the bottom of the foot. This is a great alternative. This is a fast, non-invasive, no downtime alternative and I have it in my office and I can't wait to use it on whoever needs it.
Speaker 2:Well, I for one. I'm hoping that you don't need to try it on me, because I've been fortunate enough to not have. I'm sure I've had them at some point, but it's not been a recurring theme for me. But now I know. If something pops up, I know where to go. Thank you, I'm going to go get the SWIFT wart laser treatment over at Dr D's office. Oh yes, all right. So before we wrap this up here, if someone is out there listening and they've been dealing with a stubborn wart for months, maybe even years, what is your message to them today? What would you like to leave them with?
Speaker 3:My message is fear not, there is a solution to your problem a solution to your problem.
Speaker 2:Love it. Very cool, all right. Is there anything else that you wanted to add to the equation before we wrap up this beautiful formula?
Speaker 3:Preventative, preventative advice. If you don't want to even get a wart in the first place, don't walk barefoot. Keep your feet clean and always have a good sandal or flip-flop around the pool, because that's where you're going to get it from.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Never forget that.
Speaker 1:All right everyone.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for tuning in. If you like this content, don't forget to like, subscribe. Leave your comments below all that fun stuff. Let us know what's on your mind. We love hearing your feedback. We thank you all for joining us on this wonderful journey and we wish you all a pleasant day. Be well and take care.
Speaker 1:Be well, take care. Thank you for listening to the LMD Podiatry Podcast. For more information, visit LMDPodiatrycom. That's L-M-D-P-O-D-I-A-T-R-Y dot com or call 954-680-7133.