Peeling, peeling, everywhere

I wrote a bit ago about doing feet wraps - and how much I loved them. Last week during my YW activity, I did a wrap again, and yesterday, I started to peel again! But this time is wild - it's so much more than last time, so I must be losing all of the dead parts for sure this time, I can't wait for the softness. 

I love it! I'm having such a great time with this, what a great time it is peeling my feet. 

Peely Peely

As I mentioned in my book club retreat post, we were gifted a foot wrap-type thing for a present. This is something - you're supposed to put it on your feet for 60-90 minutes, and then watch as your feet peel 3-5 days later. I wasn't sure this would work, I was so skeptical. But PJ had done it, so I trusted it and put it on. (I forgot to get a pic of that, alas)
Then about 5 days later, it started to peel!

Its hard to see in the pic, but there it is! I can't wait for it all to peel off and leave me with soft soft skin (as is promised on the package)
I'll keep you updated!

The Woes of My Toes

Today I went to the foot doctor, and had many things done. First of all, we all remember when I broke my toe back in January, and I never went to a doc for it. They can’t do anything, so I didn’t see a point in even trying to fix it. The bruising went away, it stopped hurting so much, and all I had left was a bump on my foot, and a pain when I tried to bend my toe. Finally, I was going to the foot doctor for another issue, so I thought I’d see what they said about my toe. The doc saw the toe, and immediately knew what it was, but wanted some X-Rays to make sure. After getting those, he told me what the problem was. You know how you take a hammer, and you hit it really hard into a piece of wood, and it makes a big dent, with a few spidery cracks around it? Apparently, that’s what happened to my toe – it’s dented. Sheesh! So now there’s scar tissue there, and that’s what the bump is. So he’s given me some creams, and I get to rub those in, and then wear what I’m calling a toe sleeve:

Which is just a small compression band, that hopefully, with the help of the creams, will dissolve/get rid of the scar tissue. If that doesn’t work, I’m supposed to get cortisone/steroid shots, which I don’t want to get. So lets all cross my fingers that this will work.

The whole reason for my going was to ask the doc about my arches, which always hurt. He decided orthotics were a good idea, and I got fitted right away for my custom ones.

I can’t wait to see how these turn out. Of course, this sadly means I won’t be able to wear flip flops anymore, and that makes me sad. But on the positive side, now I can go buy some new shoes, to wear with my new orthotics!

Hurts so Good

Lately, my feet hurt. Not the whole foot, and not even all the time. But there’s one specific place in the arch that just hurts. Mostly when I stretch it weird, or if I happen to just rub my foot weird on my flip flop. But when I push into the spot, or dig like, the leg of my chair into it, I get a feeling that I can describe as “glorious pain”. I finally understand the phrase: Hurts So Good, because it does. It HURTS when I do that, but it feels amazing too. The other day I was like, I should get a small foam roller for my feet, and work on them (Especially with the half marathon this weekend). I went to Sports Authority, and found:

Now, these feel AMAZING. The gray one is awesome (and if you get these, I recommend doing them with socks on, it takes the intensity out a little, and makes it feel just a little better) and the orange one…feels. It’s not good or bad, necessarily, it just feels different. Pokier, for sure, but I am using the heck out of the gray one. I’m close to bringing it to work to do during the day!
I really enjoy them, and if you have feet pain where I’ve described, or probably any, I would recommend these. Now maybe my feet won’t be too bad this weekend!

Feet, Feet, and Nothing But Feet

I painted my toenails again this week. I tried really hard to get some cute shapes, that sort of thing on them, but after trying for a quite a while, I had to finally take off the entire nail polish, paint again, and just added the dots. I like it, it’s simple.

Ta-daaaa! I like ‘em. I think I’ll keep these around for a bit.
And kids, I tried again. I did the feet thing again. I even tried using the Ziploc bags, so that I could walk around, like I was told. Well…I couldn’t walk around. I just had to sit there in the two Ziploc bags, because walking made the excess mouthwash stuff spill out.
So, I dutifully sat there for 30 minutes, washed it off, dried my feet, and applied a healthy amount of lotion, as required. And…there was really no change at all. The tops of my feet were soft, I’ll give you that. But the bottoms, the cracks, etc, were the same as always. Still cracky, still not soft.
I am a little disappointed with the shaving cream-mouthwash adventure, but that’s ok, at least I gave it a go, and got to see the results myself. It’s possible that because I wear flip-flops every day that my feet are beyond saving with a simple home remedy like this, and that’s ok. I’ll just do what I always do – wear my flip-flops, and get a pro pedicure once every few months, and they can slough all the dead stuff off themselves.

A Mission for Softer Feet

A long time ago, I saw a thing on Pinterest (where else?) that promised to heal the cracks in the heels of my feet, and fill them in forever, leaving me with soft feet. Since I wear only flip flops, usually, I have the worst cracked and dry feet, so I've been looking forward to doing this. It took me a long time to finally get to it, but this week, I had some free time on my hands, so I got to do it. It seemed simple enough. In a large bowl or sink, combine equal parts of warm water with Listerine mouthwash. Myself, I used 2 cups of each, seemed to work just fine. Then soak a hand towel in the water mixture, getting it all kinds of soaked. Then coat your feet in shaving cream. With your feet still coated, wrap them in the hand towel. Just hang out there, feet wrapped, for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes is over, use the towel to wipe off all the shaving cream, then dry them completely (I dried and waited for about 5 minutes or so, to allow ample time for them to be dry) then apply a good amount of lotion to your feet. Voila! The end.

Now, before we begin, here’s what my feet looked like before I did anything:

So, I did all this. I coated, I soaked, as evidenced by this,

 I waited, I dried, and I lotioned, and…my feet were almost exactly the same, and here’s what they looked like afterwards: (its a little blurry, oops)

 I can maybe feel a bit of softness that wasn’t there before, but the cracks were still there, and there was still some roughness. Bonus though, my feet now smelled minty fresh (as did entire rest of my house, after letting the Listerine towel sit in the laundry hamper overnight) But, it didn’t work like it promised me at all. I of course, tweeted out what I was doing, and then when it didn’t work, and I got a reply from a friend who had done it before, and she said that it had taken her two times of doing this before it worked. So now, I have to wait a week, and then do it again. Apparently, it takes off layers of your skin, so to do it more than once a week would damage your feet. Good to know, I have no problems waiting a week for this. So now, I know that you guys are on pins and needles, waiting to see what happens, as I am. So in a week’s time, I’ll try again, and let you know if it worked. I also got some tips from people, like, using two washcloths instead of just the one that it asked for, etc. I hope it works, because otherwise, I’ll feel pretty silly soaking my feet in Listerine for no reason.