0:00 This is Tom and I'm going to tell you how to treat your blister, how to know if it's something bad, and how to prevent it from ever coming back. So, did you have too small of a shoe, too cute of a shoe, or run too many miles or hike too many miles? I'm going to show you tips and tricks at home that you can do to get feeling better starting right now. So, a quick disclaimer, never do stuff alone at home. That's for clickbaity purposes. But I am going to show you great tips such as these, such as these that work at home. But first, let us know in the comments. Was it too small of a shoe? Is it a bunnion? Is it a hammer toe? Is it your heel slipping and rubbing along the back? Is the shoe
0:45 too cute and too tight and you want tips and tricks on how to fix it? Or did you run too many miles? We love knowing this stuff. Comment, let us know. Tell us if this video helped or didn't help. So the first thing is your blister. Is it dangerous? If it's red, if it's hot, if there's thick mucous drainage coming out of it, it is infected. You have to let your podiatrist know immediately. Here's the thing. 90% of people will be okay by cleaning it off with soap and water and putting antibiotic ointment on it. It is possible to drain this blister at home, but it's dangerous. And what happens is if it gets infected, you could get cellulitis and end up in the hospital. I see this a lot. A lot of the times if
1:32 you have a relationship with a podiatrist, people just call me up and I can electronically send them an antibiotic until they can come see me. Because a lot of the times you go to the ER, you're waiting for 12 hours anyway. And what happens is you end up getting antibiotic and referred to podiatrist anyway. So, call your podiatrist's office if you're worried, if you're even suggesting that there might be an infection. We'll take great care of you. Doctors will get you in and they want to help you. But I understand if you can't do that. So, this is the unofficial guide right here. If it's red, if it's hot, if there's pus draining out of it, it's probably infected. If you have nausea, if you feel like vomiting, if you have chills, that's more of an emergency. You should get to the
2:18 hospital. But what you want to do is clean soap, clean it off, wash your hands as much as possible, clean all that dirt out of the blister, and what you want to do is get topical antibiotic ointment. So like Neosporin, triple antibiotic ointment, sylvvadine is good. There's a lot of great stuff out of CVS, but again, officially you should be seeing your doctor. But should you pop it at home? A lot of the times if there's a thick blister, I in the office will pop it. But people hurt themselves, especially if you're diabetic, if you smoke, if you have blood flow problems. Healthy people, 95 plus% of the time, they're going to be okay. But just be safe. Check with the doctor if you're worried. But the truth is, realistically, most people will be okay
3:04 and can heal this stuff. But if there's an infection, you need an antibiotic. What you want to do is you want to get padding. So get yourself a band-aid. There's a lot of great bandages online. There's waterproof bandages. There's the basic bandages. You want some antibiotic cream to put on there. Is it on your big toe joint? Is it on your heel? Is it on your fifth toe? These are common areas that are rubbing. So, get a band-aid. Get some antibiotic ointment. Stop doing what you're doing. So, cut down on your mileage. And the next thing you want to do is make sure your shoe fits properly. We have a great guide that I'm going to link right here that will help you fit your shoe properly. But common problems are it's too tight in the front. So you can see these are pointy in the front.
3:51 It's too tight in the back. So you can see dressier shoes are too tight in the back. People fit their shoes when their foot's not swollen and then during the day the foot swells. That's why the shoe's too tight. Number two, people don't measure their foot size when they're standing. you have to stand because when you stand your foot expands about half the size or a full size. So these are some of the common problems we link in that video that I mentioned. So check out our guide to fit your shoe at home without specialized equipment. We can help you with that. This is a shoe stretching device. So essentially this is like $15 online and the show notes are down below. So if you want these, check it out. But look at I set up a couple pegs and one's for the bunny and
4:36 Taylor's bunny and fifth toe and big toe. So you can see right here they correlate and essentially that twisting metal rod makes them stretch out and essentially the heel stretches out the heel area. So you can see right there the bumps correlate to prominent blister areas on your foot. So in this case if you're going to blister in the fifth toe, the little toe, you have a bunion or a Taylor's bunion, just get this guy, stick it in here, and you leave it on for 24 hours overnight. And see this uh back part that I'm twisting right here? That's for the heel. So in the front, the metal rod basically expands that. So see that's expanding. And you leave that for 24 hours overnight. And that will stretch out your Taylor's bunion. So the Taylor's bunny is the little toe and the
5:21 bunnion's the big toe or the side of the foot if you're getting problems there. And that back part, look at that. I'm stretching that out. That's stretching out the heel area. So, if you're getting heel blisters or back of the heel blisters, especially in your high heeled shoes, that can stretch that area out. Take a little bit of pressure off there. Or if the tongue is pressing too tightly on the top, stick that tongue part on there and that will get pressure off the top of the foot. And then as that's sitting overnight for like5 to$10, shoe stretch spray. Just take that and you spray that area. Essentially, it moistens it a little bit and then it kind of stiffens up in that position so it stays stretched out. So, that spray is a great idea. I use that quite a bit. You know, personally, I always go with
6:06 good podiatrist recommended shoes, but if you wear the fancy high heeled shoes or ones that are tight in the front, the shoe stretch spray can be great. So, spray it overnight. It can't go up five shoe sizes if you have a tiny shoe, but it can go up, for example, one to two shoe sizes. is it can spread out the front, it can spread out the heel. So, that's a shoe stretcher. That thing for two of them, it's like 15 bucks. Moisturize. If you don't have a blister already, get some petroleum jelly. Get some wax. There's specific anti- blister creams that are more expensive that are thicker than than petroleum jelly, but petroleum jelly is like three bucks at any grocery store. This works great, especially if you put it on over tape or mix it up with tape. Don't put the
6:53 jelly, then the tape. It won't stick. There's specialized creams like this that can work well, but these are harder to get. You probably don't have it at home. Deodorant. Just rub it against the back of the heel, the back of the Achilles tendon, the bunion. If you're in a pinch, just grab this. This will help quite a bit. It'll lubricate your foot. If your feet are moist and sweat a lot, there's a lot of powders online. We're going to link some down in the show notes, but corn starch, talcum powder, there specific antifungus and anti-athletes foot creams. There are great anti-persperent sprays. Check the show note for sprays, anti sweat, anti-stick stuff that will really help your feet. So, there are gel pads like this. So, you could see this one goes onto the heel like this. So, these types
7:38 of gel pads, they work really well. They can stop your heel. And number two, if you have a band-aid already, put some duct tape over it. So, duct tape on the heel, on the big toe, it sticks better, you can keep walking and going to work and the skin won't rub. But you don't want to put that directly on the blister because it will make the blister worse. Good socks. Get yourself some good socks. So, thin socks that are synthetic that specifically wick moisture. Spend a couple extra bucks. They're like five bucks or 10 bucks online now on Amazon. Are you kidding me? It's just get them. Don't even think about it. You don't have to buy like $50 socks like back in the day, but cotton socks, synthetic socks, as long as they're not crummy socks. And make sure, see how there's no stitching here? Make sure you don't have
8:23 thick stitching in the front that's rubbing on your toes. Socks can be very important and beneficial for you. And again, down in the show notes, we link some great socks. Get great shoes. Down in the show notes, we show you our best running shoes of 2020 and 2021. Check down there. Best running shoes, best walking shoes, best dress shoes. We got you covered in all brands.
