Balance Your Health

Treating Your Corns

Most of us develop corns in the winter when we're wearing socks and shoes and boots depending upon where we live. Corns can be formed by tight fitting socks and shoes that are too tight, deformed toes or your foot sliding around in your shoes. It's difficult to form a corn walking in bare feet on the beech.

A corn is a hard, thickened area of skin that generally appears on the top of your toe, the tip o in between your toes. It is usually caused by friction and pressure.

It's called a corn because it is like a kernel of corn, round and yellowish in color. Corns on the outer surface of your toes are usually hard while corns between the toes are often soft. It is an inverted cone shape with a point that can press on the nerve below and cause pain.

Weekly warm water with Epsom salt helps soften corns. Following the soak, apply a moisturizing cream and cover them with plastic wrap for 15 minutes. After removing the wrap, try gently buffing off any dead tissue with pumice stone.

The first step to prevent more corns is to purchase shoes that fit. To relieve the discomfort from the corns you have now use corn pads or toe sleeves that can wrap around your toe for cushioning. Check the foot-care section of your local drugstore for other relief products which may include creams and corn remover pads. If the corns continue to cause pain, make an appointment with a podiatrist.

And as long as you're paying attention to your feet, make sure you put on clean socks daily to keep away the fungus.

If you use a way to get rid of corns that works and is safe, let us know. We are open to your ideas.

To your success at balancing your life and your health.

Ruthan Brodsky

PS If you or a friend of yours is interested in a free, special report about avoiding foot pain, visit this site for more information Foot Pain Treatment Guide.

Avoid Foot Problems by Keeping Your Feet Dry and Warm

What is amazing is that something as simple as keeping your feet dry and warm can help you avoid all sorts of terrible foot problems. It is the small things that count to keep your feet happy.

For instance, whenever you change your socks or your shoes, be sure to smooth your socks to avoid wrinkles that could cause problems. Run your hand inside the shoe to smooth the shoe's seams and check for any irritating stones or threads. When changing socks or shoes, we often just shove our feet into our golf shoes or our tennis shoes or our hiking boots. This puts pressure on your heels and tender skin.

One way to avoid problems is to use a shoehorn when changing shoes to ease sore feet back into the shoe. The shoe shoehorn will also help keep intact any taping or bandages that are already on your foot. For example, if you have an untapped blister on your heel, the pressure can tear the skin off the blister.

Trail hiking often results in wet shoes and boots that become caked with dirt. Change shoes and socks as soon as possible after getting wet. Even though shoes and socks do dry out after a stream crossing or in rain, continuing to hike may cause problems because your skin on your feet becomes overly soft and tender and more prone to blisters. If your blister has already ruptured, the skin then opens up and if its been wet for some time, it often looks shriveled and you can see the skin separating. All of which is why you need to carry extra socks in your first aid kit.

In very cold weather, especially when your skiing or snowmobiling, its important to keep your feet dry and warm. Socks and footwear that are too tight will impede circulation. Not good. Change your wet socks to dry. I like to use moisture wicking socks throughout the year.

I welcome your ideas about what you do with your socks to stay free from foot problems.

You may also want to receive a copy of my free report, "27 Tips to Prevent Foot Pain and Injury". Click on the link  and claim your report.

To your success at a balanced life.

Ruthan

Prevent Blisters

 If you have ever sat at poolside you already know that not all feet look alike. Feet are structurally different and the way your feet are made may place extra pressure on weight-bearing areas. Sometimes this pressure produces blisters but

only during certain activities such as running but not walking.

If you find that you are one of those who develops blisters in specific areas, you may require special custom-made insoles to prevent a recurrence. This is a very good reason to make an appointment with a podiatrist, particularly if you have a chronic disease such as diabetes. You don't need the problem of open sores that don't heal, especially when blisters can be prevented.

Another way to get a blister is to purchase new shoes that may not fit exactly. There is nothing worse than a blister, a red, burning sore, puffed up and filled with fluid that appeared because the shoe rubbed your skin the wrong way.

The fact is most blisters are preventable if you wear shoes that fit correctly with a sock that cushions. This is very important if you bought those new shoes for your revise goal to exercise more often.

However, if you tend to get blisters whenever you are

breaking in new shoes, even when you are wearing

socks, try these steps to prevent blisters:

·     Put petroleum jelly or foot powder on the

most sensitive spots on your feet including

the backs of your heels, the balls of your feet,

and tops and sides of your toes.

·     Cushion these spots by inserting moleskin

pads in your shoes.

To your success for healthy feet.

Ruthan Brodsky

Is Tea Tree Oil Effective On Your Feet?

I have been doing a lot of writing about foot health lately. In fact, I am preparing a home study course on the topic. Part of my research included learning more about tea tree oil which I have used to soften cuticles and treat dry nails. I quickly discovered there are a lot more uses for tee tree oil.

What You Can Do About An Ingrown Toe Nail

The medical term for this painful condition is onychocryptosis. It usually happens on the big toe when a corner of the toenail curves down and digs into the skin. Left untreated or undetected, an ingrown toenail can infect the underlying bone and lead to serious infection.

If your symptoms are minor such as the toe being red and not very painful, and you don't have a complicated condition such as diabetes, you can take some simple measures at home to treat your ingrown toe nail.

• Soak the foot in lukewarm water 2 or 3 times a day for 15 minutes. I always add Epsom salts but I'm told there's no scientific evidence this will heal anything or help the pain.
• Massage the skin at the side of the toenail gently pushing it away from the nail.
• Some suggest placing cotton under your toenail after soaking to help the nail grow above the skin edge. Some doctors say this is too risky because it traps bacteria.
• However, do apply a topical antibiotic such as Neosporin or Polysporin or bacitracin. Cover the area with a band aid.
• Wear sandals or other low-heeled open-toed shoes whenever possible.

Preventing Ingrown Toenails

• Wear low-heeled shoes that have enough room at the toes. If you wear stockings wear moisture-wicking socks so your toes move freely.
• Keep your feet clean and dry.
• Use a toenail clipper (not a fingernail clipper).
• Cut your toenails across, going with the curve. Do not round the corners down and don't cut the toenails too short.

If your toenail becomes infected it's time to see a doctor such as a podiatrist (foot care specialist) or a dermatologist. You may need to take oral antibiotics for an infection and the doctor may have to remove the ingrown part of your nail.

Painful feet can make your day miserable.  Take good care of what keeps you mobile and they will take good care of you.

To your success at balancing your health.

Ruthan Brodsky

How to Treat an Ingrown Toenail

An ingrown toenail is a common condition, for both men and women. It happens when the corner or side of one of your toenails grows into the soft flesh of that toe. It usually affects one of your big toes and if not taken care of properly can lead to pain, redness, swelling and sometimes infection. This usually happens when the toenail breaks the skin and bacteria may enter and cause an infection. Sometimes, skin may start to grow over the ingrown part of the nail.

Many people with ingrown toenails take care of the condition by themselves. Warm soaks and proper nail trimming may be what's needed, but sometimes it's best to see a foot specialist when you first feel the pain and the pressure. If the pain is severe or it's spreading, a podiatrist can usually relieve your discomfort and help you avoid more complications of an ingrown toenail.

Athlete's Foot - Remedies and Prevention

Athlete's foot is a skin disease caused by a fungus. It usually appears between the toes.

I want to give you information about this skin disease now, before you work on your new fitness and weight goals and run to the gym 3 times a week. The warmth and dampness of areas around showers and locker rooms are wonderful breeding spots for the fungi. In fact, because the disease was common among athletes who use common locker rooms and showers, the name "athlete's foots" became popular.

First, I want you to know how you can prevent athlete's foot. If that doesn't work, here are some tips on diagnosing it quickly and treating the disease at home before it becomes serious.

Sunscreens and Sunblocks - Solutions

A problem to finding a good sunscreen is that most labels of sunscreens and sunblocks don’t differentiate and use the term ‘sunscreen’ for both.

Sunscreens are good; they give broad spectrum protection. In fact, most off the shelf products protect against UVA and UVB rays. Make sure the label says either: "broad-spectrum protection" or "protects against UVA and UVB."

Sunscreens and Sun Blocks - What's Not So Good About Them

In my last post I wrote that there is research which indicates sunscreen isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. (June 26, 2008) The American College of Preventive Medicine says they don’t protect against malignant melanoma (MM). In fact, they may even increase the risk of MM because people who use sunscreen tend to stay out in the sun longer than those who don’t.

The information below isn’t really technical; it’s the names of the chemical ingredients that are scientific but I’m assuming you would want to know about their possible impact for your health.

Sunscreen Sense

Saturday was the first day of summer and I feel compelled to write about protecting yourself from the sun. No matter how hard you work on balancing your physical and mental and personal life, you and I still need to sometimes get back to basics – such as preventing skin cancer.

I’m one of those people who wore a t-shirt over a bathing suit when I was a kid and still got sunburn especially on my back. I remember blisters.