What is a Callus?
A callus is thickened skin caused by friction/rubbing.
Why Treat a callus?
Calluses can be painful. This might range from a little discomfort to quite severe pain. The hard callus (mass of hardened tissue) presses (causes pressure) on the soft underlying skin and causes pain. This pain is caused by pressure on the soft underlying tissue which is under callus. The pressure or rubbing that has caused callus pushes on the hardened tissue – and this is transmitted through to the soft tissue and discomfort is felt.
What can be done?
As the pain is caused by the mass of hardened tissue, the two principals of treatment are:
- Determining the cause of the pressure
- Removing the mass of hardened tissue
Where can you find a callus? (Location)
- An Area that receives lots of pressure due to gait, wrong shoes, compromised foot anatomy or certain activities, for example activities that put repeated pressure on the foot, such as running or walking barefoot, can cause calluses to form
- Over a Corn
- Over a verrucae/wart
Treatment
Now that we know that a callus is a thickened mass of dead skin and we understand the cause and common locations where they can be found. It is good to know that the layers of dead skin that makes up the callus can be discoloured – usually a yellow in colour.
To treat the callus a foot professional would clean the area and remove the callus completely or in part in very thin slices with a scalpel. This may sound painful but in fact as there are no nerve cells in the thickened, dead layers of skin that make up the callus. these layers are carefully peeled away with a scalpel, it is really only cutting through dead protein – just like cutting nails or hair. It may be a little sensitive afterwards as the new healthy skin is now exposed.
Occasionally, a callus can be extensive and might need more than one treatment episode. The foot professional would rebook you in 6-8 weeks.
In addition, if the underlying cause has not been adequately treated, the callus will reoccur.
Home Care
You can soak your feet in warm soapy water for 15 minutes, dry feet (and between toes) rub the hard skin with a pumice stone, wash your feet, dry them and apply a foot cream (not between toes!) and put on some woolly socks for an hour to allow the foot lotion to penetrate the skin.
Often people would ask me if I would advise scraping or cutting off their own calluses at home – my answer would always be a very solid NO. The first reason is, that you could injure yourself by cutting to far into the skin and the second reason would be that once you have cut into healthy skin meaning you could sustain an infection.
If patients are diabetic I would always advice that they get seen by a professional instead of attempting any treatment at home.
For foot health appointments , contact me on :
WhatsApp: 07856577897
Email: contactme@dessiefhp.com
Website: https://dessiefhp.com