each summer my left big toe suddenly developes a deep skin crack. it is always the same. It disappeared completely this winter, but three days ago it blossomed again, the same as usual in the very same position. this happens just to me or it's a known issue ?
Lotion a lot? Maybe it would be worth a one time trip to a dermatalogist. Somone may be able to glance at it and have an easy fix.
Chronic localized dry skin/cracking is fairly common. The best treatment approach is to use a pumice stone on the affected area and then use Bag Balm (odd name; great product, and yes, it's OK to use it on your paws as well as your pets...). Cover the area with a flexible fabric bandage for a couple of days, applying Bag Balm and letting it breath at night. After it has cleared up, apply Bag Balm to the affected area each morning and the problem should not recuur.
i've heard of it many times on the SBL but it's hard to find it or something similar near my places. some lanolin based cream maybe ?
You can get it at shopinprivate.com for US$4.99 + US$13.95 /10oz (285.5g) international air mail shipped to Italy. If for some reason you cannot buy online, you could look for a petrolatum/lanolin based emollient in your local shops, but I doubt it would be quite the same...
If the crack doesn't hurt then I wouldn't worry about it. I get the big toe cracks as well, and I usually ignore them. This summer, however, I just happened to be sitting around with a pair of diagonal cutters and I cut off the excess thick skin around the cracks and that helped make it look better.
It appears that bag balm contains 8-Hydroxyquinoline Sulfate, an instant google search led me to this page which claims that hydroxyquinoline is a suspect cause of cancer. no wonder since it's a tar derivative. though the amount one can use on her/his toe is very small i think i'll stick to a common lanoline cream and the usual spirit to disinfect. you know, i am paranoid about chemical stuff. and btw i am too tightfisted to spend 19 bucks on a cream lol :$ i appreciated your hints anyhow nevershoes ... my curiosity was about the toe skin cracks because i've heard a lot of complains about heel cracks from barefooters but cant remember about toe issues, so i wondered if it's my walk that brings me to toe injuries instead of heel ones. p.s. sure i understand that shod people can find this kind of threads real weird ! but wtf !
Curses! My evil plan to foment vaginal-cancer-causing products upon the unsuspecting feet of innocent hippies was foiled and my secret identity compromised in one swell foop by jagerhans. We'll meet again, jagerhans, and next time, I'll find a product that is even more insidious, causing strange colors and shapes to erupt in even more embarassing areas than the last! BWAHAHAHAHAH! :rolleyes5
beware of this vicious public enemy fellow hippies... http://hipforums.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=&stc=1
1. No, you are not the only one with this problem. It happened to me some years ago too. When I check up ethnological dictionaries about the subject of going barefoot , I found out that it was a know issue long ago. Peasants in Sweden that went barefoot everywhere from spring to fall, got cracked big toes and it appears that it was even more common and considered more difficult than cracked heels, because you move your toes more. 2. What to do about it. In olden days they used tallow or juice from pine tree. Often it´s a matter of kill the bacterias to make it heal and they used dust and water from sharpening knifes. And to my surprise kow urine! I know some mixtures to put on still today use pine tree. But don´t you have something in the store for the purpose? Most often it´s the same thing as used for all kinds of dry skin. I found that most are parafine based, because we want it to be absorbed by the skin and not remain in a messy state.
I get your point. As going barefoot are the natural thing to do we don´t want to put on chemical stuff. I can´t say what´s right or wrong. I agree to your thoughts, but maybe we shouldn´t make to much value of all information we get. Think if we should listen to all people have to say about barefooting? We have to get our own experience. To try to compare the values of different dangers. We inhale a lot of bad stuff, but we are really in a bad situation if we stop inhale.
I remember reading in the health section of my regular newspaper that cracks like you describe can be caused by a fungal infection. Why not try lamisil or something, and see if that helps?
urine used as a disinfectant is no news in popular uses (our peasants used regularly to pee over open wounds). animal fat can be useful to keep the skin moist. they just used straight pine resin or how? i have got to try it then (i live surrounded by thousands of pine trees). i'm a little skeptical about the water and honedust method. about your ethnological researches: i'd be glad to know a bit about your sources for a point of mere curiosity, if you dont mind, i'm amazed that there are chronicles about such a peculiar popular lore. and I sure dont want to get too uselessly histerical about the evils and dangers of modern chemistry but the problem does exist, plus another concern from my side is to find ways to make things without depending on constant supplies of exotic goods from that plethora of products sold on the market. I started walking barefoot to be able to walk for real while most people arent, so _if_ i can find something natural and available forever like a vegetal resin well, it is my first choice hands down. i have always been obsessed about self sufficiency and soon i am going to join for some days a mountain commune where it's 35 years that those men women and children live in almost total isolation without power and current water and there are barefooters too... maybe my journey will gain me some new knowledge about self medication with 'field' remedies (or a first hand experience of septicaemia, lol) in that case there is a chance for them to disappear? i find them more likely to be caused by heat, because in autumn - winter those cracks close, and i use to be barefoot for most of the time, the year round. the cracks reopens in summer with walks on scorching sand and hot asphalt etc. anyway i could use some to check if this annoyance comes from fungi.
Listen jagerhans, I know what exactly you need, your skin need lipides and Palmityle A, buy VICHY PODEXINE cream and your problem will be solved very soon, believe.. Vichy Podexine work really awesome (from my own one year experience) and I throwed all others cremes like Scholl´s and etc., it´s a junk.
thank you brother but I finally managed to get rid of that annoyance simply .... applying the common, known cure of soaking the foot in hot water for an hour, then filing the skin with a pumice until my skin got so thin it was nearly about to bleed, and then waiting for the brand-new tissue to grow on the thin layer left. the little cut in the skin healed promptly with no bindages. it was boresome but it worked. I'll take into consideration your reccomendation, in case it happens again peace, and shoelessness stefano
