Good Understanding for Your Feet

Drop your attention down equal in distance to your height and consider two of the most mobile, supportive and loyal members of your body – Your Feet. In the summer, feet often get the most attention they’ve had in months, especially for women, but think of those friends that carry us around wherever we choose to walk, and then consider what many of us silently carry around beneath our socks and shoes. Many of us are embarrassed by them; by they way they look, feel, or smell, and most of us forget to thank them by taking care of them.

Have you considered them lately, or, like most of us, are they often forgotten and neglected unless for some reason they start to itch, burn, ache or otherwise begin to irritate us? How about those extra pounds they’ve adjusted to carrying without complaint over the decades? And those shoes we insist upon putting them in! Is it any wonder why they yell back at us with pain? And how about those toenails; are they true ingrowns or compacted debris caught up underneath the corners of them? Until we feel them, we don’t think about them, do we? And if we injure them, can we really get close enough to them to see what might be wrong? Do we need a little help to give these puppies a little TLC? If the answers to the above questions are mostly YES, we are in need a therapeutic pedicurist!

Did you know that a trained therapeutic pedicurist can help you avoid ingrown toenail surgery? Many people are misinformed about how the toenails need to be trimmed, and that the space between the nail and the nail bed, especially in the corners, needs to be carefully cleaned of the little collection of compacted skin cells and other debris removed with each trimming, every two to four weeks. If you don’t know how to do this, you need a monthly therapeutic pedicurist.

Did you also know that the skin only found on the feet and the hands has an extra layer of cells that are designed to thicken when subjected to pressure or friction? It is this layer that often interferes with the sides of the toes, forming a hard layer over the corner of the nail, so when the nail grows, it collides with this thickened skin and causes pain. This problem can be corrected by a therapeutic pedicurist.

Did you know that your shoes can be causing many of your foot problems? Ill-fitting shoes can cause the pressure and friction that causes the skin to thicken and callus, leading to the painful ailments mentioned above. Few are the customer-service oriented shoe stores that employ trained shoe-fitters, but they are still around. A proper style and fit for comfort, wearing your correct size and width and materials that allow for proper circulation and ventilation to your feet can be an investment you almost can’t afford not to make if you work standing on your feet or if your dogs are barkin’ atcha.

Did you know that most smelly feet can be corrected? Dark + Wet + Warm. This combination makes for a fertile playground for bacteria and fungus spores. Add dead skin cells that aren’t properly exfoliated, perspiration and dirt collected on the feet for bacteria and fungus to thrive upon: and you’ve got odor as a result of the byproducts of happy and fed bacteria which are reproducing by the minute. The feet themselves don’t smell, and this rare condition is called bromhydrosis, which is diagnosed by an MD. Whether or not you have been diagnosed with a condition such as this for your feet, proper foot hygiene and your monthly therapeutic pedicure can help correct this condition.

Fungus under the toenails… Do you have problems with yeast infections or jock itch as well? How about those towels and washcloths in the bathroom; are they sour smelling and the only thing you can do to make them smell better is to use fabric softener in the dryer? These can be related and coinciding problems, and if you treat one area, you will need to treat everything else to make it go away and to prevent recurrence. Remember the ‘Dark + Wet + Warm + Add Food’ rule to help keep your fungus and bacteria growing into a large, happy family? Washcloths and towels exfoliate skin cells and remove dirt from the body. These are not removed with a basic ‘rinse the soap out and throw the wet thing into the corner on the floor for a day or two’ method, as the soap used often contains fatty acids that contribute to the problem and that poorly dried cast-off sits in that dark, warm, moist place and grows your magic garden! And if you use fabric softener, even more fatty acid nutrients that feed and fertilize! Mildew spores (the fungus that is causing the sour odor) and bacteria can then migrate into the flooring, sheetrock and behind the tub enclosure to ‘infect’ even more hapless victims!

To help nail this problem, first, treat your laundry (including socks) with a few tablespoons of chlorine bleach stirred into the water before adding the load of towels. Make sure they get at least 10 minutes of agitation to kill mildew spores and bacteria. Double rinse. Do NOT add fabric softener to towels and washcloths, but using those rubber dryer balls really does work to help eliminate static and they ‘beat’ softness into the fabric naturally.

FYI- Did you know that using fabric softener in your towels actually LESSENS the absorbency of your fav Turkish? Using a little more rubbing to get completely dried off? It’s not the towel, it’s the coating of the fabric softener on the outside of the cotton fibers that prevents the fabric from wicking up the water…. Now about those socks: SAME THING GOES! If you can eliminate two of the equation of ‘Dark + Wet + Warm + Add Food’ rule, you will slow down the reproduction of those microbial invaders that are causing all of the problems! Use white, absorbent cotton socks, (cleaned after every wearing in that mild chlorine bleach or enzymatic detergent solution) inside your work shoes/boots if possible. If not, high-quality leather shoes and removable insoles that can be laundered are a must for proper ventilation and hygiene for the feet.

Feet need to be cleaned daily with a fresh washcloth to exfoliate the dead skin cells and perspiration and exposed to the air to dry. The best time for this is either right after work (yeah, put ‘em up for a spell) or just before bedtime. Wear comfy slippers that have good ventilation (cotton terrycloth or flannel inside) around the house to keep them clean and protected.

I recently attended a meeting for the WA Electrologists Association and one of our guest speakers was a Dermatologist and she gave a tip that I want to pass onto you all because it is a great FYI:

IF for any reason you experience any tenderness or redness around the toenails after a pedicure (manicure, too!), there is something you can do right away to avoid it getting worse: soak your foot in this solution: 1/4 c. apple cider vinegar to 1 quart very warm water (not hot, though) proportionately. The vinegar is effective against the bacteria that can cause inflammation. After about 10 mins., dry the toes with a clean paper towel and apply a triple-antibiotic cream/ointment to the affected area and cover with a bandage. Do this at least once a day, more often if it gets soiled, until it returns to normal. If it doesn’t improve, please see your Dr.

Our feet need the tender loving care of a therapeutic pedicurist to help them take us through to the end of our journey here on earth. Choose a pedicurist that uses sterilized implements (they will be stored in and taken out of paper or plastic wrappers in which they were sterilized in) and single-use, disposable containers, wraps, paraffin booties, wipes, scrubbers etc., that come into contact with the skin and cannot be properly decontaminated between clients. If you have a chronic problem with fungus on the feet, avoid common use pedicure chairs with the water tub or foot baths to soak in. Watch your pedicurist clean up after and set up before each client; are they really decontaminating that soak tub? If what is being used to clean with isn’t chlorine bleach or ‘hospital grade’ on the label, it isn’t effective against many microbes that cause infections. For those slow-healing, circulation-impaired feet, you need special care and caution taken in your professional treatment. Let’s raise the bar for quality care for your feet, those loyal friends!