TB: That way we can see the full extent.
So how much was it like this when you were a young? You can relax your feet you can relax.
How was it when you were a young girl; was it this bad?
P: Just at the heels initially.
(music)
What's up my toes? It is Jonathan, a.k.a. The Toe Bro, and here we are another day.
End of the day for me at the office.
Closing up, just finished cleaning everything, getting the garbage all out, mopping the floors,
and
taking the time just to breathe and relax. It's been a long day, so today's topic is
calluses and corns:
how do we treat them, how do they form, and how can we prevent them from coming back?
Calluses are just an accumulation of dead skin
and there's really one reason why we get calluses: callus forms from direct pressure on the skin.
That direct pressure on the skin tells the body that there's too much pressure in that area
and what the body does in response is build
extra skin or extra skin growth to protect itself. If we have a foot that might be rolling in on the side,
we might be having too much pressure on the side of the toe we get hard skin buildup. If we have a shoe
that's too narrow or too tight on the toes, that direct pressure can cause
hard skin to grow. For someone who has a higher arch,
you can see the two pressure points on the heel and a ball the foot. This direct pressure
can cause people to have a lot of hard skin on the heels. Calluses are just a reaction from too much pressure.
Why do we need to treat calluses?
Calluses can sometimes be helpful. They protect the body from too much pressure and kind of give us an extra layer of protection.
But sometimes, if there's too much callus growing, it can cause pain.
So usually calluses need to be treated, again, if they're causing foot discomfort.
Because calluses are just extra dead skin growth,
there's really quite an easy way to treat them: you remove the dead skin. Here in the office, we use
scalpel blades to remove the dead skin
accurately. This small scalpel blade is really sharp and allows us to
safely remove as much dead skin as possible. The goal for us is to remove as much hard skin as we can
making it as flat as we can. That's gonna reduce the amount of pain that you feel.
What we could also use is that dremel tool that has a nice water spray. By using some sort of
drill or something that has grit, we can remove the dead skin as much as possible. Again, by us removing the dead skin,
we're truly only treating the symptoms and not the cause. The cause of the hard skin is the pressure so we have to figure out
where the pressure is coming from, whether it's the way we're walking, whether it's the lack of padding or cushioning,
or is it because our footwear is a little bit too snug or too tight.
Here I have the professional tools, such as a scalpel or the drill, to remove skin quickly and precisely
and safety, especially since I'm being so close to the foot. This can sometimes be hard for people do at home.
There are a few things that can be safe and useful. One thing that people can use is just a basic
emery board or nail file. So this is The Toe Bro file.
It has a diamond grit to it and all we're doing is using it on the skin itself just to file down
excessive dead skin. Files, anything that has grit, usually works best when the skin is dry;
that way the hard skin just flakes off
just like dust or powder. If the skin is too moist, sometimes it can gunk (clog) up the grit
and then the grit slips
and it doesn't really catch the dead skin. Things that have holes, such as pumice stones or something that has more of a cheese grater (surface),
can pull the skin even if the skin is moist but again, things that have grit, like sandpaper, work best when the skins dry.
So number one: a standard file.
The next thing that you guys could also use is something called a Gouni
and this is something that I offer in my office
and this is also great for professionals who do deal with foot care more often than the typical person:
spas, foot care nurses, nail technicians, could definitely benefit from this.
This is a stainless steel handle that can be sterilized and
basically what happens, we have these one-time use grits that kind of stick on like a sticker;
It's like this. So what happens there are different grits. There's in a very rough one. medium, and fine.
This is something that can be used on the skin
again filing down as much as we can and then once you're finished, you just peel it off,
take it off,
sterilize the handle, and you can use it on the next person. So this is actually a really safe way to use a file
especially if it's used between multiple people or if you have multiple
clients. You can clean up the handle so you're not passing any germs or viruses or fungus and everyone has our own
sandpaper grit for each client. That keeps it really sharp,
keeps the grit being nice, and
strong, being able to take as much skin as possible.
There are three types of grits that come in the starter pack all of different intensities.
There's one that's really rough, medium, and fine.
Again, what happens, you take the paddle, you take this one off, then you put the next one on. The Gouni is a great option.
You put on the one-time use file, you file down your patients or clients hard skin or your own,
then you dispose of it. You can clean the handle, you can sterilize it, you can use chemical baths,
whatever you need to do to try to disinfect the handle and that way you're not passing it around,
sharing it between friends, family members, partners, or clients.
If you guys are looking for a more advanced, higher quality tool,
we have something called Angelfeet and this has a pretty interesting story behind it.
It was an engineer who invented this for his wife. The files that I use in my everyday office, the the long thin ones,
or the Gouni that you just saw, anything that has sandpaper is basically just grit.
It has rough, uneven surfaces that pull at the dead skin. This one has a very
special file or a head to it.
It's basically a triangle or a pyramid that has a top cutoff so it's a very flat
square top pyramid and what happens is when you pull it against dead skin,
it only pulls the dead skin, and it doesn't dig into the healthy skin. "Angelfeet's patented design
removes only damaged skin while leaving healthy skin untouched. There's no bulldozing or shredding up the skin.
No, micro abrasions and no material
deposits left in the skin that can cause damage and fractures."
So this is actually a very, very safe, strong powerful file. It's stainless steel,
it's able to be autoclaved and sterilized so you can use that on multiple people, once it's been cleaned.
There's a fine side and there's a course side. So this is really, really high quality stuff.
All you have to do is, again, use it right on the area of dry skin,
it pulls off all the dead skin safely. One thing that I use in the office to help improve
how much dead skin I can pull off
is this callus softener. When I'm using a scalp or using a blade, this is really helpful.
The Angel file works really well with this softener. Again, it softens the tissue and then it's able to pull away (dead skin).
Sometimes when we have, like I said, grit based files, it doesn't work as well.
But again, this callus softener is for people who are looking for something just to reduce some of the toughness of that hard hard skin,
this is something to use. For calluses, once you determine
what is causing the pressure,
if you remove that pressure or stress on the skin, the body won't have to build as much callus
and then there's less maintenance, less hard skin that builds up in the future,
and less you have to remove. So when people come in with calluses, the goal is to remove the dead skin,
find out what's causing that pressure, remove the pressure, and then will have less hard skin in the future. The other issue
that's commonly seen in this office: corns. Corns are a little bit trickier to treat.
Calluses are formed from direct pressure;
corns on the other hand are formed from direct pressure and
twisting. It's this twisting motion that pushes the callus into the body.
Normally, calluses are just dead yellow hard pieces of skin that just sit right on top.
Corns on the other hand, have this yellow circle to them with some sort of core in the middle.
That core is just dead, hard skin. Think of it as callus has been pushed into the body because of this twisting motion.
So it's kind of the same idea with calluses. We try to remove as much of the dead skin as possible.
Corns are very hard to treat on your own because there is some sort of core. Here again,
I use a scalpel to dig out the center portion of the corn. That's gonna give the person a lot of relief.
At home, no one really has a tool to dig out the center. So again, using the file, whether it's the emery board.
the Gouni, or the Angels Feet to help try to remove as much callus on the top, is gonna help
give you some relief. But to get the corn out of the middle,
that's where you're gonna definitely have to see some sort of foot specialist for that. We can remove and treat the dead skin
but we're only treating the symptoms not the cause. The cause of the core is the pressure.
So we have to find out why are we having that certain movement in that area
that's causing that. This really goes down to a lot of
biomechanics of the foot, determining how much motion you have, if it's too much too little.
If you're walking more on the outside of your foot or you're twisting too much as you're toeing off the ground, a lot of issues
like that have to be
discussed in order to reduce and stop that movement. If we can reduce and stop that movement, we are definitely gonna help reduce
how fast or even if that corn comes back in the future. Corns we have here on the tops or the side of the toes.
What can happen with the footwear because the skin is so tight to the shoe, the hard skin can't grow up,
And that's when it grows into the body.
Some people use corn pads to use on their calluses or on the corns themselves. What corn pads
are it's just basically a pad filled with salicylic acid. Salicylic acid softens the skin
so it gives you some short-term relief, but if we're not physically removing the dead skin, once the salicylic
acid dries out and the skin goes back to being hard, you're gonna get the same discomfort all over again. One thing that I notice
with time and this is why it's so important to treat corns and calluses when you first notice them,
with time those pressures on the skin changes the skin; it almost turns the skin into a scar.
That's why sometimes when we remove the callus or corn, the skin looks red, pink. It's very tight
and these are permanent changes. The reason why it's so hard, once the skin has been damaged like that, scar tissue is very different.
Scar tissue does not have a lot of stretch;
it's very tight skin. So because the skin doesn't stretch as much, because of this constant trauma,
even when we remove as much dead skin as we can, because the skin isn't
expanding, it's gonna be absorbing a lot more stress when we're walking or in shoes
and that's why the callus or the corn will build up really quickly back in this in these areas. So it's very important to treat
corns and calluses before the skin has been permanently changed or
damaged. So today's video is gonna be showing just a woman who unfortunately is suffering from a lot of corns and calluses.
This is not a normal amount of corns of calluses and this is because probably due to a genetic disorder.
She's never been diagnosed by her family doctor or been referred to dermatologist,
but the amount of skin that's occurring is not normal; something in her skin is causing it to just excessively grow and reproduce
faster than normal. We're gonna try to reduce as much of the hard skin as possible
but even if she doesn't walk at all, even if she stays off her feet, unfortunately, the hared skins gonna come back.
It causes her a lot of pain. It's very uncomfortable to walk and it's extremely hard to treat.
This skin is so, so, so hard that I had to change the blade multiple times.
I had to use that callus softener multiple times, and it was just a really, really tough battle.
I've never done anything like this in my life for a patient because usually I've been able to
take care of them within our normal consultation time.
But when I saw her foot, it was the first time for her seeing her today in that video,
I knew I was not gonna be able to treat it in 30 minutes
and I asked her if she had enough time to stay a little bit longer
and she did. I still had maybe around 6 patients left.
So what happened,
I did as much as I could and then when the next patient came, I asked her if she could wait outside. I cleaned
up the room, did my one patient and got her back in
15-20 minutes to do as much as I could.
I sent her back out
and we did that for probably around two and a half three hours of almost just going back and forth working out a one-foot work
on the next. I'm so thankful
she had a lot of patience, and I'm thankful that I was able to fit her in between patients.
This was a lot of work, and I really feel for her. She was a brave, tough woman dealing with a condition
that's not getting better, only getting worse.
Even though she has some sort of condition
that's causing the skin to become worse, one corn like that or one callus that's left untreated overtime,
could really cause a lot of permanent damage to the skin and cause a lot of discomfort.
So it's really important that you find a foot specialist sooner than later to have it looked at, assessed, and treated.
Home treatment is actually quite important because if you can maintain or reduce the amount of hard skin
that's growing. You're gonna really, really reduce the amount of pain or discomfort that you feel with the hard skin buildup.
So number one: using some sort of file or emery board, something
that's going to remove the dead skin is really important for you to do at home.
If it has more of a grit or sandpaper or feel to it. it's better to use it when the skin is dry.
If it has more of a pulling effect teeth or grit or holes,
that's something that you can use when it is wet because it can pull the dead skin a little bit easier.
You can use a callus softener,
you can soak your feet in water, if you have the right tool that pulls the dead skin while being soft.
So again, if you guys are curious about some of the
items I showed you, you can go to the website. I'm gonna be putting them up
so you guys can have access to them.
Again, really helpful to take care of the hard skin when you see it. One of the most important things
again to note from today, corns and calluses, dead skin, can be removed, but we're just treating the symptoms
not the cause. We have to figure out what where the pressure is coming from,
why is the body causing hard skin in response to that pressure, and that's gonna be a better solution for you to reduce the amount
of hard skin and discomfort and pain that happens in the future. Another day down in Foot Health Month.
I'm just gonna show you the video of her feet today.
I am gonna post the video tomorrow of me doing some treatment and again doing a little bit more discussion.
Corns and calluses is a big part that I see every day in the office.
So I'm just gonna split it up into two videos. Hope you guys are enjoying the videos. Continue to share, like, comment, subscribe
if you haven't. Give me the support. I love the support! I love the community! I love you guys!
I love you toes so you guys take care. Have a great night! Toe Bro, out.