Every year it gets worse. Most of the summer I am in Chacos except at work. My heels get heavy callus (and now my toes, too) that dries out and cracks. The more I’m in the water the worse yet. Pumice stones cringe in fear at this armor. I’ve tried a lotion called Heel Balm with limited success and am considering a pedicure just to remove the callus. Not into the nail polish on toes for guys. 
This has to happen to a lot of paddlers. What do y’all do?
Same thing happems to me
I can’t wait to see if there is a magic solution to this problem. It is not that I want soft women’s feet and am not interested in a pedicure, but surely there is some soultion to the dry cracked heels1
I’ve had some success with…
a product called Kerasal AL; it’s an exfoliating moisturizer. Applied twice a day it does a good job of softening and seems to break down the callouses so they can be attacked with a pumice stone. I fought this for years and this is the best thing I’ve found.
Best-
~glenn
yikes!
– Last Updated: May-23-06 1:54 PM EST –
now i have to worry about my feet, too?
wait, the application of the above-mentioned creams sounds like a good excuse for a foot massage...maybe not so bad after all. :-)
this always worked for me.
A sharp knife and a steady hand will remove callouses. Then you can use sandpaper to put the finishing touch on those dogs.
extra emollient night cream Mary Kay
My water aerobics mentor uses Utter Balm or some such thing - her feet are in and out of the water five to seven long days a week.
I use Mary Kay night cream. It goes on feeling greasy but the greased feel is quickly gone and the skin lubricated and soft.
Then get one of those foot kits at someplace like Bed Bath and Beyond and scrape down the callous materials bit by bit.
If you go have a commerical pedicure they may take off a lot of excess skin and you may have sore feet for a week after wards.
This product is good on elbows, hands, feet, windburn, and so on. It doesn’t come in a pink bottle - but the stuff is pink. I keep my Mary Kay dealer deal up once a year by ordering a number of tubes of this stuff. My coworkers at my seasonal job beg to borrow my cream.
Fix in one day
My wife used to have this problem and we found Kerasal worked the best until I sent her to a day spa. They soaked we feet in some mistery stuff and then used a metal scraper to remove what would have taken her three tubes of Kerasal and a month with the dremel tool. I don’t know what they put in that foot soak but it is definately worth the ~20 bucks for the pedicure for her.
bag balm …
good stuff.
Porter’s Liniment
is another brand of salve. The stuff doesn’t smell good, but heals cuts and skin breaks overnight. It also relieves the pain.
Kaps
Thanks for input
I’ve tried some of the suggestions already and will keep my eyes open for Kerasal. There doesn’t seem to be a silver bullet for this short of enlisting the help of a machinist friend and his lathe - if I can stand the spinning.
Try dry sanding. I use a file called a
Swedish Clover FootFile. You might have to get it on line at a beuty supply site. It’s made just for this purpose. You file the heels while dry and then apply lotion. I use Vaseline, with cotton socks on my feet at night. By morning…new feet. I’ve had this problem for years and this is the only thing that really works for me.
O’keeffe’s Working Hands (and Feet)
I was recommended O’Keefe’s after I had moved to Oregon (east of the mountains - very dry). My hands got so dry they cracked and bled everytime I laced up my boots. Within a week of using this stuff each night, my hands were back to normal. They also have a foot cream product - again, with regular use, rough spots disappear. There are very few products I “swear by” - but this is one product that I have found to be just fantastic. Supposedly it’s available in some stores - I USED to be able to get it at Walgreen’s, but haven’t seen it there in awhile - so last time I needed more I placed an order online through their website. I think this is a GREAT product. The interesting back story is a pharmacist developed the product for her father and his friends who are all Eastern Oregon ranchers who always had terrible dry and cracking hands.
Good luck!
I bet that’s Bag Balm…
Comes in a green tin, ostensibly was originally a balm for the teats of dairy cows, sometimes recommended for nursing mothers. :^ )
More than you wanted to know about something you intend to rub into your feet, I bet…
Good topic
So what actually causes this? the friction of open toed shoes? My boots dont cause me any problems, but by the end of the warm season I could sand railroad ties with me feet!!
One of the google choices
http://www.epodiatry.com/cracked_heels.htm
There was another place (foot nurse?) that endorsed the bag balm or cream approach.
YMMV,
Cindy
Good reference
What do people do who live in mostly shoeless cultures? I think I’ll look for a footfile and will have to force myself to better remember to slather bag balm or Kerasal or something on twice a day (or more.) The stuff sure makes your heals slippery until the dirt and sand filter in to add traction. I’m sure that the dry climate out west, along with the repeated water exposure, and my aversion to shoes in summer really complicate things.
Sand them
Get a pumice stick, callus wand what ever they are calling it and keep them sanded down. If they do crack get some bag balm, heavy coat them put a covering on it overnight. The bag balm will soften the callus and and ease the cracking.
I don’t get it but I wear booties all
the time . Other guide I’ve worked with have vaselined the hell outta their feet when they have removed the calosus’s with some degree of sucess , only with all the goop on em it pics up everthing else as well as the gunk in the yak.