Corns can be a common disorder of the foot that may be painful and hard to treat. Corns are caused by too much pressure on an area of the skin. They are part of a natural mechanism that has gone awry. When there is too much pressure on the skin, that area of skin will thicken up to protect itself. When the pressure continues over a longer period of time, it might be so thick that it is painful. This is the same as the process which happens when, for instance, cutting up wood with an axe. Doing this a lot, you eventually produce a callus on your hand. Exactly the same thing takes place on the foot with pressure from the ground or pressure on a toe from footwear. When you stop cutting the wood, the thicker skin on the hands goes away. The challenge in the foot is that you keep using shoes and you continue walking, so the pressure continues and the thicker skin forms into a corn and becomes painful.

Getting rid of corns is comparatively easy and a skillful podiatrist will be able to take them off. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is preventing them returning. It is one thing to remove them, but unless you get rid of that cause (the higher pressures on the area), then they will just return eventually.  Corns dont have roots that they can grow back from. They come back because the cause is still there. Taking away a corn is similar to managing the symptom. They are going to come back unless the reason is removed. This is where the skill of a podiatrist is needed to find out the proper cause. A complete assessment is necessary of the biomechanics, footwear, foot structure and lifestyle to sort out just what it is that is bringing about the higher pressure. Once that cause has been identified, then different interventions can be used to reduce that pressure. This could range from simple footwear advice to foot supports to surgical procedures.