Corn On Foot
Got A Corn On Your Foot?
Having a corn on your foot can be an unpleasant experience; in fact it can be an extremely painful one. The amazing thing is that corns are easily preventable, although there are some exceptions, and usually easy to treat as well. A person who has a deformity of the foot, even a slight one, may be particularly susceptible to corns, and may at times have to take drastic action to prevent or cure them. For most of us though, getting a corn is our own fault.
Throw Those Shoes Out - A corn on your foot isn't simply a symptom of some disease that happens to pop up in an inconvenient place. That corn is almost always caused by pressure, irritation, or both, and at least nine times out of ten, ill fitting shoes are to blame. It's nothing short of amazing that people with corns will complain about them, try to treat them or get rid of them, and continue wearing the shoes that caused the corn in the first place. It may be a little too much to ask to recommend walking around barefoot all day, but that is a sure-fire means of preventing corns, and also a good way to get them to leave. No pressure or no irritation, no corn. It's as simple as that. By going barefoot, one may develop calluses on the soles of the feet. That would be natural, corns are not natural.
Corns, like calluses, are made up of layers of dead skin, and are usually hard and flaky. The main difference in the two, at least visually, is the corn has dead hard skin, usually yellowish in color, surrounding a soft and usually very tender center. Calluses are an area of dead skin without the sore center, and are normally not nearly as unpleasant to have; in fact they seldom hurt at all.
If you have shoes that are too tight, pressure on the toes can cause a corn to develop. If the shoes are to loose-fitting, rubbing can cause irritation, in turn causing a corn. Wearing high heels and pointed toes are an open invitation to developing a corn on your foot, as high heels cause the forward part of the foot to bear the brunt of your body's weight. This extra pressure, combined with a shoe that doesn't fit almost perfectly, will set the stage for developing a corn. Irritation or pressure causes the skin to become thicker as a protective mechanism, but eventually the skin becomes too thick, and layers of dead skin begin to build up. Corns can appear anywhere on the foot, but usually are located on the top of a toe or on the outside of the little toe. Corns can also occur between the toes.
The Corn Plaster - Not wanting to, or simply not considering, getting rid of a pair of shoes responsible for the formation of a corn, we often do the next worst thing. Buy a corn plaster. There is really nothing wrong with the right type of corn plaster, one that does not cover the sensitive center of the corn. A donut shaped corn plaster will keep pressure off the sensitive part of the corn, but aside from that, is not so much of a treatment as it is a means of relieving pain. A patch or plaster that covers the center of the corn will usually only make matters worse, by increasing the pressure on the corn, which was what caused the corn in the first place.
The corn on your foot isn't always caused by a shoe that's too tight or too loose. It can also be the result of the foot rubbing against a seam in the shoe, or some other rough edge. The wrong size of sock can also cause a corn, but in most cases it’s the shoe that's the culprit.
Treatment usually consists of soaking the feet to soften the dead skin, and filing the skin away. Repeated applications of a moisturizer will also help. If you keep the shoes that caused the problem though, that corn on your foot is likely to come back.