Corns are painful lesions that occur on the bottom of your foot or between your toes. Pain occurs if you apply direct pressure to the lesion. Long periods of walking or standing will cause tremendous pain and discomfort. Corns are due to abnormal amounts of pressure over a small area. With long periods of standing or walking, the lesion will go deeper and deeper and feel like you’re stepping on a pebble. Treatment must not be delayed as the condition can get severe and may result in a neurovascular corn. Neurovascular corns are deep corns which are connected to a nerve in the foot. These corns cause tremendous pain and are very hard to treat.
Corns can occur almost anywhere on your foot. They can be on the heel, the front of your foot and even in between your toes.
There are many different reasons why corns occur depending on its location. It could be due to your foot shape, the way you stand/walk or a particular type of shoe.
Causative Factors
- Tight footwear- increase in pressure from a tight shoe will cause the skin to develop a corn
- Hammer and claw toes- the abnormal shape of these toes will cause the toes to not fit properly in the toe box of your shoe and increase pressure on the tip of your toe resulting in a corn
- High heels- will cause increase pressure on the front of the foot
- Gait- If your gait does not have even weight distribution, corns will develop. Sometimes knee or hip pain can cause you to compensate and put more pressure on your “good” leg but result in formation of corns because of the increased pressure
What you can do
- Wear shoes that are not too tight or narrow. Wearing proper running shoes will be beneficial in reducing the shearing pressure of the foot and ensure proper heel to toe gait which will reduce the pressure on the foot
- If you are getting pain with a corn and cannot see a foot specialist right away, you can use donut pads to take the pressure off the corn. DO Not use medicated corn pads as it can cause irritation and infection and will make it more difficult to treat in our office
- Toe separators can be used for corns between the toes to relieve the pressure
What we do for Corns
Because corns are located deep within the skin, they must be removed. Once the lesion(s) are removed, you will feel an immediate pain relief. You will leave your appointment with pain free feet and without the need of any medications.
Patients will be educated on how they got the corn depending on its location. Proper education will be given on how to prevent corns from reoccurring. If the corn is due to a biomechanical issue, orthotics may be needed to offload the lesion. This will slow down the growth of the lesion and reduce pain in the area.
- Lesion would be debrided.
- Footwear recommendations will also be given.
- Biomechanical assessment will be performed to assess if your gait causes an abnormal load on the area where the corn is forming.
- Orthotics may be prescribed to offload the pressurized area.
Please feel free to book your appointment at our Whitby office, or Toronto Office. Now serving- Bowmanville, Courtice, Oshawa, Whitby, Brooklin, Ajax, Durham, Pickering, Scarborough, Toronto, Etobicoke, Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Markham, Thornhill.