What are corns?
Corns are painful areas of thickened skin caused when high pressures become concentrated in small areas. Corns can develop after long standing callus develops a hard plug, and can be extremely painful to walk on.
Hard corns appear on the top and sides of toes secondary to footwear pressure and also on the bottom of the foot due to abnormal pressures from standing or walking. Soft corns, in most cases, appear between the fourth and fifth toes but can occur between any of the toes. They tend to sting and are uncomfortable. Seed corns often occur on the balls of the feet.
Conservative Treatment
Our podiatrists at OnePointHealth can help by removing the corn, determining the cause of the corn, and providing you with padding, strapping and silicon wedges to try and prevent the corn from reoccurring. Orthotic therapy may also be suitable in order to redistribute pressure away from the area of high pressure, therefore reducing the risk of the corn developing.
Corns that are chronic in nature and continuously reoccur, even with regular conservative treatment, may also be addressed surgically for a more permanent solution. This can be done by removing the cause of the high pressure areas. An example of this would be to surgically remove the top of hammer toes, which would reduce pressure and eliminate the corn.
