Dr. Chester Laskoski
Foot and Ankle Care

Foot Care

Skin and Nail Care

1. Soak your feet in warm soapy water for approximately 10 minutes. This helps soften and clean skin and nails.
2. After the foot soaking, gently remove calluses with a pumice stone or emery board. This gets rid of dead skin cells and calluses. Some body scrub products can help exfoliate dead skin. Contact our office if you need to cut or shave calluses.
3. Trim toenails straight across rather than in a curved pattern. This helps prevent ingrown toenails, allowing the straight edge of the nail to advance as one unit. Cutting the toenails in a curved pattern allows the recessed edges to grow into the skin. Trimming nails too short can promote ingrown toenails. The toenails should be trimmed just enough so that you can see a few millimeters of skin just beyond the nail margin. Nails should not overhang the edge of the toe.
4. Refine the nail edge with an emery board, maintaining the straight edge.
5. Apply cream and moisturizing lotion to the skin and nail margins.
6. Massage reflexologists, who have no medical or standards of training and are not licensed or certified by any accrediting body, sometimes do foot massage. No scientific evidence exists that ailments can be eliminated with this type of manipulative therapy. People with significant medical problems should always consult with a medical doctor. There are licensed masseurs who can perform massage therapy within the scope of their training. Specialists in the body's reflexes, called reflexologists, believe that points on the foot correspond to other body parts and ailments can be relieved through reflexology. They believe the ball of the foot has a connection to the lungs, the heel to the lower back, and the great toe to the head. Although no scientific research exists to back up these claims, reflexology does seem to produce positive results in some people. People with significant medical problems should consult with a medical doctor.

If you go to a salon for pedicures, be sure standards and proper credentialing by state licensors is maintained by the nail practitioner.

Many nail problems begin with pressure from shoes, some problems are congenital in nature, and some are caused by changes that take place with the aging process.

A fungus or mold can often live in the nail without pain, since the nail as it grows is an appendage (like hair) and has no nerve or blood vessels (unlike skin).

Often fungal disease starts in the nail and grows insidiously, causing discoloration, odor, and thickening. Other diseases, including psoriasis, can cause nail deformity, infectious and an ugly appearance which can be difficult to eradicate.

Ingrowing nails are both common and easily correctable. If you have discoloration, thickening or ingrown nails, a podiatric center and treatment will frequently help to correct or improve these disorders.