Callus - Causes, Treatments and Remedies

What Causes Calluses?

A callus is a piece of hardened skin that can appear on any part of the body that is the subject of continuous frictional forces. Usually, a callus will appear either after a prolonged period of pressure or after a blister heals. The most common place for all of use to get calluses is in the foot. Our feet and soles are very much the same as the rest of our skin biologically but the skin here is specialized for the purpose of holding up body weight. This causes the skin to be thicker and the dead skin layer to be thicker than the rest of the body. The soles of the feet are pretty much the same as the palms of the hand with no sebaceous glands – the glands that produce skin oils – but filled with sweat glands. This is primarily the reason for hardened at such at extreme level, because there is no skin oil to retain moisture.

Calluses themselves are nothing to really worry about and since they are a natural skin reaction to continuous pressure and friction, it is actually a good idea to just let these be; otherwise, blistering will start to occur quite frequently. However, calluses have a more sinister incarnation in the form of corns, which are a painful form of calluses where the callus formation starts to move within healthy tissue.

Simple Calluses Treatment

Dealing with calluses, being dead skin, is the same simple treatment that we use to remove any kind of dead skin from our body. Simply wash your feet in salicylic acid. Salicylic acid has the ability to break down dead skin protein making it easier to simply rub off. Additionally, there are some simple foot care techniques that you should also follow to remove excessively hardened skin in the feet. The first thing that you need for this is to wash your feet first with salicylic acid, then dry it out before vigorously rubbing with a pumice stone. This is a simple abrasive technique similar to filing down a rough surface. Once you reach the softer skin, stop and then apply some oil-based moisturizer on your entire foot. This treatment should ideally be done at night before you go to bed to avoid slipping and sliding all over the place because of the oil. However, it is important that you wash and dry your feet very thoroughly in the morning before you start your day, and before inserting your feet into shoes.