Soft Corn Treatments from the Experts
Walk Without Pain Podiatry Clinics, located throughout Brisbane are trusted by thousands of clients, primarily for our large range of effective treatments. With a team of highly trained podiatrists at hand to help, a series of technological procedures and soft corn treatments on offer, and customer service that can’t be beaten, you can count on us to provide the soft corn treatments you need to be comfortable again.
Find the Walk Without Pain Podiatry Clinic close to you, and we’ll be happy to arrange an appointment at a time and date that suits you. We’ll schedule a time to examine your feet and answer any questions you might have. The treatment for soft corns itself is quick, simple and painless meaning you can walk out of the treatment with no down time.
What is a Soft Corn?
A soft corn is a kind of painful lesion, and a build-up of skin, that is typically found between the toes. Usually they will develop between the fourth and the fifth small toes, but it is possible for them to develop between any toes where pressure is applied from footwear or poor toe alignment.
Soft corns differ to hard corns in that they do not appear at the top of a toe, and the skin build-up will usually feel softer, warmer, and moister than a hard corn. When a corn begins to develop, it can take just a matter of weeks before they grow large enough to create significant pain and discomfort with walking.
Corns always come about from pressure. In addition to removing the offending, we can talk through your options to reduce the wear and tear on the skin for the future. Painful corns tend to escalate with time, becoming increasingly uncomfortable and can be prone to ulceration, breakdown and infection. Although painful, corns don’t have nerve or blood supply. It is the good skin underneath a corn that is reporting pain – much like a pebble in your shoe can cause pain without the pebble being able to feel a thing.
If you look at the opposite picture showing the bones of the lesser toes, you will see that they are quite knobbly little things. There is quite a prominent flare out of the base of each of the bones. If you have the misfortune to have two of these knobbly parts adjacent to each other, the small piece of skin between them can be squeezed very hard – particularly if shoes are not roomy enough or the wrong shape for your feet. The pressure that this creates is responsible for the corn formation.
As to why these are called ‘soft corns’, it is simply that the area between toe toes is difficult to keep dry from both showering and the production of sweat. Just the same way that your thumbs will go white and wrinkly when you are in the bath too long, so will the corn. It will often appear to be a very white lump in the interdigital space or may break down from too much pressure to then form an ulcer. This may weep clear fluid, blood or pus.
How Soft Corn Treatment Works
Early corn treatment typically involves relieving pressure on the toe. This might take the form pressure deflection, shoe modifications (padding) and a few other simple tricks and tips. However, if the soft corn has already developed into a problem, it will require professional soft corn treatment from the team at Walk Without Pain. As corns don’t have a nerve supply of their own, they can be cut out without the need for local anaesthetic.
What is the Best Treatment for Soft Corns?
How to best treat a soft corn between the toes depends on a number of factors.
The photograph opposite shows a corn at the very apex or the skin between the digits. These are very tricky to remove because the good skin rises up around the corn on all sides, making it impossible for the owner to attempt self treatment. See a podiatrist to have the corn painlessly trimmed away.
Likewise, a podiatrist should be consulted if there is any infection, discharge, bad odour or night pain from the area. The dead tissue of the corn can allow a nasty infection, abscess or ulcer to occur below it and should be properly addressed as soon as possible. Under no circumstances should you apply any corn pads, medicated discs, corn paint or other corrosive chemicals to such an area.
A simple corn on the inner sides of the toe (rather than right in the tight space of the apex of the cleft) are more easily addressed by simply debriding the dead tissue away from the living. This is still a task best left to a podiatrist as visualising the area is very difficult on one’s own foot.
How to Prevent Corns & Calluses from returning
1) Determine what feature of which shoe created this problem. Avoid these or similar shoes in the future. For example, it may be a line of stitching that runs directly across the area which will always stop shoe material from stretching in the direction of the stitch. Alternatively, it may be simply too narrow.
2) Appropriate Padding. The podiatrist can make for you a device to go between the toes with a gap where the corn is. This changes the pressure from being virtually only on the corny spot to be shared by the rest of the surface area of the toes, sparing the existing problem zone. Any sort of padding that adds thickness over the painful spot – such as a strip of plaster or padding directly on the corn – will generally increase the pressure on it and also the pain.
3) Shoe Last and “Comets”. Sometimes, the shoe isn’t so much narrow as just not the same shape as your foot. This is an important idea and we look at it more closely in the next FAQ: Shoe Shape and Pressure Comets.
Our team boasts over 120 years of collective experience, and our principal podiatrist has 28 years of personal experience. We’re confident we can develop the right treatment plan for you.
Arrange Your Appointment to Treat Soft Corns Today!
Want to find out more about our soft corn treatments, and learn how we could help treat your problem? Simply head over to our Contact Us page where you can fill in the contact form. Alternatively, you can call us on (07) 3256 1007 and a member of our team will be delighted to talk to you in-depth about what we do, and how we can help.
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