FUNGAL INFECTION IS THE MOST COMMON CAUSE OF PEELING FEET

With warm weather finally on the horizon, it's almost time to take your feet out of hiding and let them bask in the open-toe-sandal glory of spring. But now that they're out and on display, it might be time to address a problem a lot of us suffer from: peeling skin. "Peeling feet is definitely common, and there are various reasons why," says Rebecca Pruthi, DPM, a doctor of podiatric medicine and owner of Foot Care of Manhattan. "We're on our feet all the time and the constant pounding and walking can cause cracking and scaling of the skin," she says.

 

Dr. Rebecca Pruthi

 

According to Dr. Pruthi, the most common reason patients have peeling feet is a fungal infection (like athlete's foot) — although they might not always realize it. "A lot of times it just presents itself as peeling skin and patients don't have the itchiness, so they don't know it's a fungal infection," Pruthi says. So if your skin starts mysteriously peeling all of a sudden, get it checked out sooner rather than later. Once you have a fungal infection on your skin, it can easily infect your toenail, which Pruthi warns can be very difficult to get rid of. "What I find happens is that the skin infects the nails, the nails re-infect the skin, back and forth, back and forth," she says. 

 

Source: Laura Stampler, MSN. com  [8/6/19] 

Courtesy of Barry Block, editor of PM News. 

Brought to you by Doctor John A. Hardy, owner of Toronto's foot clinic, Academy Foot and Orthotic Clinics.