Cure for dry heels?

[hapahaole]

I'm hoping someone might now the answer to this.

How can I get rid of my dry heels? They are always cracked, sometimes they crack so deep it's painful.

I've had dry heels for as long as I can remember, no one else in my family has this problem. I thought taking flax or fish oil would help but so far such luck (I've been taking it religiously for a year now). I was hoping being raw might help but so far it's not working. I'm 70% to 100% raw depending on the day.

I've exfoliated, used creams, seen a Podiatrist and no one has been able to help me.

I'm thinking of trying coconut oil internally, not sure how much though. I've been using it externally but only for a few days and I don't see any improvement yet.

Any ideas what else I could try or what I need?

I appreciate any help you can offer!

-K

[Mandy]

I don't know if it can help you at all, but I'd check oneluckyduck.com. If you can't find anything on your own maybe see if you can contact someone there to see if they've got an answer.

[D'vorah]

Hi, hapa. Love your screen name!

I had the same problem, and saw my feet on a tv product commercial for athlete's foot! I couldn't believe it, I'd never had the classic toenail issues or between the toe problems, just nasty, cracked, painful heels. I didn't buy the product, grin, but I did try over-the-counter stuff from the grocery, which worked, but only for a little while and then I'd have to switch to another product for a while and back and forth.

What I finally found as the ultimate cure for my problem is soaking my feet for 10-20 minutes per day (longer when it's that bad) in white vinegar, followed by using one of the exfoliating bars with handles (I don't do that every day, though, just once a week or so).

I've found that I can keep my vinegar in a foot-sized plastic container and re-use it, replacing it a couple of times a month.

I can't say for sure that your problem is fungal like mine has been, but the deep, painful fissures that you describe make me wonder.

Aloha,

Deborah

[hapahaole]

Thanks Deborah,

I thought it might be fungal too that's why I visited a Podiatrist but he just brushed it off as nothing.

I'll try soaking in vinegar. Luckily I have a huge container of it here.

How long until you saw results?

Can taking anything natural internally help cure it?

[T-Bird]

I had dry scalely heels for years. Then I had severe bruising in an accident and started up with the epsom salt baths....

heels became soft and smooth......

Not sure on the causative agent here, but.....

Try it.

[SunChild]

Cacao butter topically. lots of it. Try MSM cream too.

Keep yourself hydrated to maximum, and eat lots of good oils.

INMHO.

Do you wear shoes too much? if so, try being barefoot more often, but apply cacao butter constantly. don't slip over.

[hapahaole]

Cacao butter topically. lots of it. Try MSM cream too.

Keep yourself hydrated to maximum, and eat lots of good oils.

INMHO.

Do you wear shoes too much? if so, try being barefoot more often, but apply cacao butter constantly. don't slip over.

I barely wear shoes. I'm originally from Hawaii so the less I have to wear shoes the better. Slippers are my shoes of choice!

I'm wondering if it's my lack of oils. My diet has always been a bit low in fat.

Is cacao butter better then coconut oil? I ask because I have over 1/2 gallon of virgin coconut oil right now and no cacao. However if cacao is better I can order some through my local co-op group since it's fairly inexpensive.

It stinks to not have an answer or to have nice smooth feet!

I appreciate all your help!

-K

[katchmoleen]

Does it look like this (http://www.peacehealth.org/kbase/mm-doc/tp106/tp10646.htm)? That is fungal. Coconut oil is antifungal and your best bet. Vinegar too. I battle this also.

[margoss]

I have always had ugly feet/heels & snake skin legs no matter what I did. I started spraying AC vinegar diluted 90% with water on my entire body especially feet then I rubbed them coconut oil (I keep in in the shower). A few weeks later, I decided to rub my heels with the scraper thing. Thinking it would do nothing, as it always had. Voila!! All the skin came off my heels & they were almost smooth!! Now, I coconut oil them twice a day & gently scraper thing them daily. My heels were so thick that at times, my feet hurt bc the skin was so hard & it pushed on the soft skin inside.
Try the co/acv, then after a few weeks..scraper thing;)

[hapahaole]

Does it look like this (http://www.peacehealth.org/kbase/mm-doc/tp106/tp10646.htm)? That is fungal. Coconut oil is antifungal and your best bet. Vinegar too. I battle this also.


It does, it seems to have become worse. I just took a look and I don't remember it being all over the bottom of my feet before. The deep cracks though are just at my heels. I'll continue with putting coconut oil on at night and I'll also try the vinegar soaks.

[hapahaole]

I have always had ugly feet/heels & snake skin legs no matter what I did. I started spraying AC vinegar diluted 90% with water on my entire body especially feet then I rubbed them coconut oil (I keep in in the shower). A few weeks later, I decided to rub my heels with the scraper thing. Thinking it would do nothing, as it always had. Voila!! All the skin came off my heels & they were almost smooth!! Now, I coconut oil them twice a day & gently scraper thing them daily. My heels were so thick that at times, my feet hurt bc the skin was so hard & it pushed on the soft skin inside.
Try the co/acv, then after a few weeks..scraper thing;)

I have a foot scraper thing too. I use to only use it periodically but I've used it twice this week. It's so odd though that the dry skin just keeps coming right back!

[oceanluv]

there is a possibility that your shoeas or slippers have synthetic materials in them that you are allergic or have a reaction to. I can't wear nylon or any type of synthetic socks, etc. or my feet burn and dry out. fortunately, I now live in Fl, so my feet are in great shape.

[Tirza]

Okay, here’s my e-book on the subject. So many people suffer from this, I wish I was selling something – I could make money .

I used to have this affliction too. It was totally miserable. Years of pain, summer and winter…bleeding, infections, torn pantyhose and knee highs, worn-through socks. It even wore through my shoes when I did wear shoes, and wore a groove in my sling-back heels.

I used to go bare-foot a lot in the summer. If I wasn't bare-foot, I was wearing flip flops or sandals. We lived in the country, had a garden and I wanted to keep those feet cool - gotta be natural too! I believe that was exactly my problem however, as the air was so drying and the dust was sucking all the moisture out of my feet. I'd get thick calluses and then they would split. Even in the winter around the house I would go bare-foot a lot or in socks or fabric slippers or some kind of flip flops. The furnace-warmed air in the winter was very drying too, so I never got relief from the cracking and pain. Moisturizer and soaking just couldn't seem to keep up with it.

I've done the moisturizing, soaking, and scraping, with very little improvement (even shaving it off with a razor blade and getting infected!). In fact it would seem to get worse after I would shave it off. It would even break off in chunks, then bleed like crazy. Of course, the calluses always looked dirty - which I guess they were, as I couldn't clean them. I even tried soaking my feet in solutions to bleach the colour out of the calluses so they wouldn't look so horrible. But then they'd be white....or yellow....

I don't know how or when I got this idea, but the problem started to improve dramatically and stopped altogether when I started wearing shoes that protected and covered my heels all the time, even around the house. Since then, only on rare occasions do I go bare-foot or sock-footed.

Sorry, I know how un-natural wearing full shoes sounds - weren't our early ancestors bare-foot? Yes. But they developed hard soles on their feet just like you see on the feet of people in underdeveloped countries who are bare-foot all the time. Nature layers on that callous so they don't get injured. The bottoms of their feet get like the pads on animals paws, sometimes almost approaching something like soft hooves, and they can walk over anything with very little risk of injury. But do we want that? Do we want to develop the splayed-out wide feet that they get from no support? Do we want to deny ourselves the pleasure of wearing dressy shoes now and then because our feet are so ugly? No we don't, and so we find ourselves struggling to get rid of what nature is trying to build up on our feet to protect them.

I wear leather shoes - not very vegan, I know, but I find that it provides a balance between keeping my feet moist enough so as not to get too dry and crack, and enough air exchange to not make them totally sweat like in synthetic plastic or rubber shoes, which provide the perfect breeding ground for odor, germs and fungus. If you happen to sweat too much even in leather, use those little cotton anklet socks for under running shoes to absorb and wick moisture. I found actual cotton shoes too drying, but better than sandals. You do get used to wearing a full shoe, even in summer. Any discomfort is minimal compared to the pain and unsightliness you are describing. Keep it up and your feet should get to the point where you are not embarrassed to have them seen in fancier shoes now and then.

You could also try those moisturizing socks that have a layer of silicone on the inside. You coat your feet with moisturizer, then put on the socks and wear them at night. The silicone layer keeps the moisturizer concentrated on your feet and off your bedding. I found wearing Band-Aids on the cracked parts helped protect them and keep some moisturizer close to the spot under my shoes too during the day.

Do all the things you can to soften and remove the calluses, but I really recommend wearing shoes if you want to protect your feet and heels and keep them soft enough for comfort and for beauty when you want to wear dressier shoes occasionally.

I have never had hard or cracked heels (or toenails) since. I am 61 now and I have better looking feet than I had in my 20's. People comment on how good my feet look, not all knotty and gnarly and calloused - just smooth and straight. Now my mother - oh boy, she was always in bare feet around the house, and in sandals etc. when out. Her feet were always a mess. I didn't want to get old and unable to care for my own feet if I neglected them like she did.

Unless you have an actual medical condition causing this, or already wear shoes all the time and still have the problem, try this.

[D'vorah]

Thanks Deborah,

I thought it might be fungal too that's why I visited a Podiatrist but he just brushed it off as nothing.

I'll try soaking in vinegar. Luckily I have a huge container of it here.

How long until you saw results?

Can taking anything natural internally help cure it?

I think it took a couple of weeks to begin to see improvement, if I recall correctly. I'm of the opinion that fungal issues are due to an acidic body/diet, and I'm not quite high enough raw to be "cured" at this stage (that's not the best work, IMO, because raw doesn't cure, so much as it cuts off the cause). So, I still have to do maintenance soaks every so often, but not every day. I press on . . .

Deborah

[D'vorah]

I live in Alaska, where I HAVE to wear shoes and socks most of the year, and I definitely go for function, not fashion. I don't believe that the cracked, painful heels I endured were the result of nature trying to give me anything, but rather, my out-of-balance diet and history of high antibiotic consumption as a child at the hands of adults who knew no better. Plain and simple, candida, fungus. Vinegar soaks are just so simple to use.

Deborah




Okay, here’s my e-book on the subject. So many people suffer from this, I wish I was selling something – I could make money .

I used to have this affliction too. It was totally miserable. Years of pain, summer and winter…bleeding, infections, torn pantyhose and knee highs, worn-through socks. It even wore through my shoes when I did wear shoes, and wore a groove in my sling-back heels.

I used to go bare-foot a lot in the summer. If I wasn't bare-foot, I was wearing flip flops or sandals. We lived in the country, had a garden and I wanted to keep those feet cool - gotta be natural too! I believe that was exactly my problem however, as the air was so drying and the dust was sucking all the moisture out of my feet. I'd get thick calluses and then they would split. Even in the winter around the house I would go bare-foot a lot or in socks or fabric slippers or some kind of flip flops. The furnace-warmed air in the winter was very drying too, so I never got relief from the cracking and pain. Moisturizer and soaking just couldn't seem to keep up with it.

I've done the moisturizing, soaking, and scraping, with very little improvement (even shaving it off with a razor blade and getting infected!). In fact it would seem to get worse after I would shave it off. It would even break off in chunks, then bleed like crazy. Of course, the calluses always looked dirty - which I guess they were, as I couldn't clean them. I even tried soaking my feet in solutions to bleach the colour out of the calluses so they wouldn't look so horrible. But then they'd be white....or yellow....

I don't know how or when I got this idea, but the problem started to improve dramatically and stopped altogether when I started wearing shoes that protected and covered my heels all the time, even around the house. Since then, only on rare occasions do I go bare-foot or sock-footed.

Sorry, I know how un-natural wearing full shoes sounds - weren't our early ancestors bare-foot? Yes. But they developed hard soles on their feet just like you see on the feet of people in underdeveloped countries who are bare-foot all the time. Nature layers on that callous so they don't get injured. The bottoms of their feet get like the pads on animals paws, sometimes almost approaching something like soft hooves, and they can walk over anything with very little risk of injury. But do we want that? Do we want to develop the splayed-out wide feet that they get from no support? Do we want to deny ourselves the pleasure of wearing dressy shoes now and then because our feet are so ugly? No we don't, and so we find ourselves struggling to get rid of what nature is trying to build up on our feet to protect them.

I wear leather shoes - not very vegan, I know, but I find that it provides a balance between keeping my feet moist enough so as not to get too dry and crack, and enough air exchange to not make them totally sweat like in synthetic plastic or rubber shoes, which provide the perfect breeding ground for odor, germs and fungus. If you happen to sweat too much even in leather, use those little cotton anklet socks for under running shoes to absorb and wick moisture. I found actual cotton shoes too drying, but better than sandals. You do get used to wearing a full shoe, even in summer. Any discomfort is minimal compared to the pain and unsightliness you are describing. Keep it up and your feet should get to the point where you are not embarrassed to have them seen in fancier shoes now and then.

You could also try those moisturizing socks that have a layer of silicone on the inside. You coat your feet with moisturizer, then put on the socks and wear them at night. The silicone layer keeps the moisturizer concentrated on your feet and off your bedding. I found wearing Band-Aids on the cracked parts helped protect them and keep some moisturizer close to the spot under my shoes too during the day.

Do all the things you can to soften and remove the calluses, but I really recommend wearing shoes if you want to protect your feet and heels and keep them soft enough for comfort and for beauty when you want to wear dressier shoes occasionally.

I have never had hard or cracked heels (or toenails) since. I am 61 now and I have better looking feet than I had in my 20's. People comment on how good my feet look, not all knotty and gnarly and calloused - just smooth and straight. Now my mother - oh boy, she was always in bare feet around the house, and in sandals etc. when out. Her feet were always a mess. I didn't want to get old and unable to care for my own feet if I neglected them like she did.

Unless you have an actual medical condition causing this, or already wear shoes all the time and still have the problem, try this.

[GlimR]

Tirza~
As much as I hate it to be true I believe you are right. My heels are terrible and I have tried countless things to help them heal. When I moisturize religiously and wear socks and shoes they do so much better..bandaides
on the cracks to keeps the moisture in so they close up.

I live in Florida and am almost always barefoot or in sandals...until it gets out of control again and I go back to my shoes and socks.

Thanks for your post~

[Tirza]

Yes, I wish I was wrong too, as I still enjoy the freedom and coolness of bare feet. Even if it is a case of actual fungus, etc. I would recommend protecting your feet with shoes while using whatever treatment you are using for the fungus. If you think you need more air exchange and coolness, use the running shoes with that net material in the uppers. That helps, and their firm soles really stabilize the callused skin on your heels, not letting it bend and break open again so easily, allowing it to heal.

The only thing is, you have to really keep it up for continuous relief. It takes quite awhile for those deep cracks to heal and all that callous to go away too. That is major skin repair, so depending on how bad it is, I wouldn't count on it being all fixed this summer. I just got myself used to wearing shoes 99.9% of my waking hours. Whenever I went to bare feet or sandals for awhile and the callous started to rebuild, the cracks would soon follow.

THAT is when I think our feet are so much more susceptible to fungus and other infections because the skin is damaged. Then it just multiplies the damage.

So - bare feet or sandals for only a rare treat of short duration. It actually feels so much more gratifying when you know it's just a treat.

[jgunn]

old time folk remedy and one still used by the army is soaking your feet in your own pee.

if you look at the ingredients in alot of foot creme you will find urea (by product of urine)

it does work for dry heels and athletes foot :)

[margoss]

I read about the urine..said to use first am product. I've never gone bf, can't even walk on grass. My M was obcessed about wearing shoes bc it meant you were poor if you didn't..I don't feel that way she does..another story. :rolleyes:
I'm allergic to Latex, I can't wear the cheap flip-flops at all. I tried it a few yrs ago & had huge blisters on all my toes across all of my feet except the arch. It was terrible, we were camping a& couldn't walk at all. Now, I'm careful about the shoes I wear. If I'm not sure it's latex-free, I contact the company.

[zinny]

I do a combination of what people have mentioned--epsom salt scrub and hot soak. (You can do this in a regular bath with epsom salts, but then use another handful just for your feet.) Right after coming out of soak/bath, I pat feet dry and slather with coconut oil, and then put on organic cotton socks to keep the moisture from evaporating.

It's also good to put on more oil and socks again right before bed--I know some people can't stand sleeping in socks, but I don't mind it and it definitely helps soften the feet.