Q: We gave our 6-year-old daughter a heartburn medicine, cimetidine, for her warts. It’s amazing! She had up to 40 warts, and they were starting to spread to her wrist and other hand. Finally, we gave her cimetidine daily for eight weeks, and they just disappeared.
A: The cimetidine (Tagamet) “cure” for warts was first written about in the early 1990s. This was an unusual use; Tagamet was a popular prescription drug for ulcers at that time.
Since then, studies have tested such acid-suppressing drugs against warts. Although some research subjects had a good response like your daughter, most of the well-controlled trials showed no benefit over placebo (Annals of Pharmacotherapy, July/August 2007).