KEEP YOUR FEET SWEET

Your feet take a lot of strain so it’s no surprise many women suffer from foot problems of some kind. Here’s how to cure the common ones...

ccording to a recent study, 90 A per cent of UK women have foot problems. It’s fairly easy to tackle minor ailments, so you’ll be ready to wear your summer shoes with pride!

LET THEM BREATHE

Fungal infections are common because the bacteria that causes them flourishes in warm, slightly damp environments like shoes. You can pick up an infection at the gym or in swimming pool changing rooms, so wear flipflops and make sure you wash and dry your feet properly. That should keep athlete’s foot – where the skin between your toes becomes itchy, red, cracked or inflamed – at bay (if not, ask your chemist for a straightforward powder treatment). I’m also a big advocate of going barefoot at home to let your feet breathe – and if you wear heels to work, kick them off under the desk. For fungal nail infections, try over-the-counter nail paints, but you may need tablets from your GP.

DITCH POINTY SHOES

Bunions are genetic, but there is no doubt that constantly wearing high, tight, pointy shoes that pinch your toes can make them worse. Bunions are a deformity of the base joint of the big toe, so the big toe points towards the other toes on the same foot – and the bone that attaches to your big toe sticks out. You can treat them by wearing (unattractive) splints that pull the toe round, but not many people bother with that. If they’re painful, there’s now very effective day surgery, where the protruding bit of the bone is removed, and the toe is put back into the right position. It’s pretty painful and you’ll need to rest up – and probably use crutches – for a few weeks afterwards.

PERSIST WITH VERRUCAS

We think of verrucas as a childhood problem, but loads of adults get them, too. Like fungal infections, you can easily pick them up at the gym or the pool and, although they can be tricky to treat, you can cure them yourself, but you need to be persistent. The skin on your feet is thick, so it’s difficult to freeze verrucas off using a wart solution. After showering, file the skin right down, then treat it. And make sure you don’t share towels as it can spread the infection.

CONSIDER SEEING AN EXPERT

Corns and calluses – hard, sore lumps of skin on your foot or toes – are mainly caused by bad footwear. If you buy some shoes in the sale that are half a size too small, the skin hardens and thickens where there’s friction; it’s your body’s way of protecting itself. Work out which shoes are causing the problem and either stretch them or ditch them. File the hard skin down straight after

you get out of the shower (when your skin is softer), and use the special plasters you can buy in the chemist. If they’re really bad, a podiatrist can remove them with a blade – don’t try this yourself.

DON’T CUT TOENAILS TOO SHORT

Ingrown toenails are very common, and are usually caused by cutting nails too short, and by cutting down the sides. That can allow the nail to grow into the skin and make it painful and inflamed. Ill-fitting shoes can make it worse as they put pressure on your nail. Ingrown toenails can be really painful, and the skin around the toenail can become infected. Your doctor can give you some anaesthetic before getting under the nail to lift it away. They may then just cut along the sides, or remove the whole nail, depending how bad it is.

WEE ON CRACKED HEELS!

Sort of! We recommend moisturisers with urea to treat very dry skin on your heels – and urea is a chemical found in urine. Having slightly dry heels is common, but left untreated they can get very painful as fissures can deepen and bleed. After showering, treat any fissures with a pumice stone and moisturiser – but if they are very painful, superglue can be a brilliant solution. It sounds bonkers, but surgeons use medical glue all the time in order to seal wounds, protecting against infection. If you have a really bad, very painful cracked heel, hold the edges at the surface together and carefully superglue them together. You’ll close the wound so it can heal better.