Corns On The Toes

Painful feet have an effect on everyone. The constant pain as you walk around on them eats away at you and makes you miserable. That impacts those around you. Painful feet are not necessarily like a painful elbow or something else that you can rest. You cannot rest your feet as we need them to get around. There are literally 1000’s of things that can go wrong with the foot and all this is further complicated by the weightbearing and wearing shoes. Not to mention what the obesity and diabetes epidemic is doing to the foot. No wonder the future for Podiatry is looking bright.

One of the most common problems with the feet are corns and calluses. These start of as a normal thickening of the skin in response to pressure. They are no different to the calluses you get on your hand if, for example, you chop a lot of wood. The problem in the foot is that the pressure keeps on going from the ground and from the shoes, so the skin gets even thicker until is it so thick it become painful. The pain builds up over time and is constant when walking and wearing shoes. The cause of the excessive pressure is usually some sort of toe deformity so that the pressure from the shoe is concentrated on one spot and not spread evenly over the whole area.

The treatment of corns, especially on the toes is straight forward. A skill Podiatrist can easily remove the thickened skin given immediate relief. They may even us padding to give even more relief over a longer period of time. This treatment will get rid of the corn. The problem and hard bit is that the corn will come back if what caused it is still present. Just removing the corn does not remove the cause. The cause is the excessive pressure, so the only way to stop a corn returning on the toe is to remove that pressure. That means the bone under the corn has to be moved or removed and that can only be done surgically. Alternatively, the shoe has to be removed from above the corn. That means a whole in the shoe, a bigger shoe, or a modified shoe. If neither of those options are taken, the corn on the toe will be an ongoing problem.

By: Craig Payne

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ePodiatry has a good resource oncorns on the toes and you can ask a question at the Foot Health Forum about corns on the toes. Podiatry Arena has all the latest research on corns.