You don’t need to run to get athlete’s foot!
Athlete’s foot is a very common skin infection that occurs often on the feet but can actually spread up to the leg if not treated. The Royal College of Podiatrists states that “Athlete’s foot is a fungal infection of the skin that can lead to intense itching, cracked, blistered or peeling areas of skin, redness and scaling. It can occur on moist, waterlogged skin, usually between the fourth and fifth toes initially, or on dry, flaky skin around the heels or elsewhere on the foot.”
Did you know?
A lot of people don’t even know they have it, if you have flaky dry skin that is getting no better with moisturising cream it could actually be a fungal infection. Now that the weather’s heating up, here are great tips for preventing athlete’s foot … 1. If you have naturally sweaty feet, use surgical spirit between your toes to help keep the skin dry. 2. Wear clean socks every day and it’s best to wear natural fibre socks or ones containing bamboo. 3. Make sure that your feet are completely dry after washing them and before you put your shoes and socks on. Dry well between your toes! 4. Change your footwear on a regular basis. There’s no point treating your feet if you constantly re-infect them by putting them into damp, fungally infected shoes. It can take up to 48 hours for shoes to fully dry out.
It’s a great idea to alternate your shoes daily.
5. If you have to wear the same pair of shoes each day, dry them out by using a hairdryer on a cold setting and take any insoles out, loosen laces and open your shoes out so that air can circulate well. If possible, choose trainers with ventilation holes. 6. Slip on and tight shoes squeeze your toes together so that moisture gathers between your toes and encourages fungus. Choose footwear with a wider, deeper toe box and made from natural materials. 7. Wearing flip-flops in the bathroom and in public showers will ensure that you don’t leave any shed skin for others to pick up, and it will also stop you from picking up other species of fungal infection.
Last but not least, don’t wear anyone else’s footwear.
Does this look familiar?
SO how do we treat athlete’s foot?
There are lots of different pieces of advice we give here at SO Podiatry, combining a little bit of homework for you and some medications from us you should be back on your feet in no time. Follow these steps and this will give a great head start to saying goodbye to the itch.
1. Wash all socks, bed linen, towels and bath mats on a high 60-degree wash. This will ensure all fungal spores that have been passed from our foot to the fibres are killed and can not re-infect you again.
2. Wear natural fibre socks such as bamboo or organic cotton. These materials are naturally anti-fungal and anti-bacterial therefore aiding in the prevention of re-infection.
3. Use Terbinafine hydrochloride cream daily on all skin on the feet including between the toes, until the infection has gone plus 2 weeks. Most people have to use the cream daily for roughly 6 weeks including the extra 2 weeks.
This ensures that the infection has completely resolved.
4. Use Daktarin spray or powder on all shoes. This powder is an anti-fungal powder that helps to eradicate any fungal spores that are living within your shoes. This will prevent cross-contamination from your shoes to your skin again. We recommend you spray your shoes every time you take your feet in and out of the shoe and spray any shoes not worn regularly, once per week.
5. Now because athlete’s foot is a fungal skin infection, this can often infect the skin under the nails and can sometimes cause a fungal nail infection. If this is the case then we also recommend using Lamisil spray on all nails. Lamisil spray contains Terbinafine hydrochloride and when it’s sprayed directly onto the nails daily it can penetrate down enough to resolve the fungus in the nail too. It can take roughly a year for the nail to grow out fully but we will start seeing good nail growth within just 8 weeks. Be sure to contact us if you need any further help or advice. We can test your skin and any nails you may be concerned about- our 5-minute fungal test will have you on track while you are in the seat with us.
