Tricia's Cracked Heel Remedies
★★★★★
Before you put your feet in any liquids use an emery board to remove any dry flaky skin. Your feet MUST be dry for this. Wet skin will only move with the emery board not fall away. The type of emery board is important. Here we use the black style. The types for nails that come in different colors i.e. pink blue etc. The reason you don't want to use the metal ones or the one designed specifically for the feet that are like cheese graters is that they are too hard and pull too much skin at once from what is already a very dry area. Think of how they would leave the cheese looking. I always recommend that this can be done while watching the telly or listening to the radio cos you can't damage yourself with these as you can with the metal type. Try to get the hard bit on the edge of the cracks without making yourself sore. You will be very surprised at the amount of dust that you will see coming away from your skin but this is normal. The brown old fashioned emery boards are too gentle and the black ones are perfect. When the dust stops flying move to the next part. If you are getting sore at all you have done enough for the day. More will come off tomorrow.
Rinse that dust off your feet as while it is blocking your pores you will absorb nothing transdermally. And it should only be dust, if you see larger bits of skin the emery board is too strong for you. At this stage you can soak your feet in any liquid of your choice i.e. anti-fungal, vinegar, peroxide or oils or salts for as long as suits you. Doing this with a couple of sports clubs some of the men chose to do it with plain old washing up liquid (detergent). So it is a case of whatever suits you. Use antiseptics or peroxide if there is any chance of an infection or dirt being caught in the cracks as it may close over the dirt and cause a diferent problem.
Then this is most important. Pack the cracks with some kind of thick oil. Our choice at the time we did this was vaseline but some would not choose this because of the petrolatum issue. Whatever you use press it over the crack to ensure that it has gone in the full depth. These cracks cannot heal while they are dry. If you had an operation on your stomach and the skin dried out to the same extent it would not heal either. We usually put large medical issue bandages over them to keep the vaseline on the feet.This won't suit everyone so a cotton pair of socks will do. The people we did this with all had to walk home so bandages were needed to keep the vaeline well packed. Wash next day as normal and leave bandage off. You want your feet fairly dry to repeat the process the next evening.
Remember it will be easy to slip on the floor until this is washed off. Do the same the next evening and continue til necessary tapering the amount of times done as they heal.
This worked within 3 days for some and some took approx 2 weeks. But it makes sense that the hard skin needs to go and the skin to be wet for the cracks to knit together.
As for the fungal infection. Many people will only treat the area that they can see the infection on. The human eye cannot see all of a fungal infection so if it spreading nor can they see it when it is at the last stages of treatment so it is very important to treat outside the area and for a lot longer that you can see it or feel it. My husband picks up an athletes foot while he is travelling for business on a regular basis. He never feels it but we can see it between his toes. We only know he has it when I catch it because I get the itching and burning long before I can see it. We use a providone iodine antiseptic wash which is normally used for pre-operation swabs in a footbath then antifungal medicated creams. Because he gets the moccassin type we bathe and cream his feet up to the ankles. I only get the moccassin type around the toe area so I only need to cover the shoe area. This is a long winded way of telling you how to do it but it actually doesn't take long perform it. The longest part of it is how long you choose to soak you feet and it is our tried and tested method.
(Ireland)
09/26/2009
One thing that I forgot to say in my previous post is to mark your nail file in some manner i.e. nail polish. Make it obvious so that you never use it on your finger nails or that somebody else might use it inappropriately. If you are carrying an infection of any kind (and most people do) it will be transferred to the fingers. The nail file can be cleaned with peroxide or rubbing alcohol but the dust is so minute and nail files are not easy to fully clean without a steriliser. So make sure it is kept for YOUR feet. As we say in Ireland "to be sure, to be sure".
(Portland, Me)
11/26/2009
(Yucca Valley, Ca)
07/19/2011
(Victoria)
07/07/2013
I used super glue on it. When the glue fell off eventually the ringworm was gone!
ACV, Castile
Anti-Fungal Supplements
★★★★★
We had just run out of garlic, so I opted instead for another powerful anti-fungal, Wild Oil of Oregano. I use OO for coughs and sinus infections and had about 15 capsules left. Before going to sleep, I punctured a capsule of oil and rubbed it over both of my feet, especially concentrating it on my big toe, in between my toes where the athelete's foot itched and the cracks on my heals. I put socks on so the oil wouldn't get all over the sheets. It doesn't smell bad at all -- much better than garlic for sure!
Just like AC reported, there was dramatic improvement by the morning! The infection around my big toe was 50% better... The blisters in between my toes had disappeared. The cracks in my heals have started to seal and are unbelievably soft... (I had been rubbing shea butter on the cracks every night, which helped, but not to this extent).
I did the Oregano oil 3 morning and night for 2 days, took a day off. The infection around my big toe is all but gone. No more peeling skin. The cracks on my heels continue to slowly improve. Tonight I switched to Grapefruit Seed Extract and my feet, normally cold, warmed up right away. This may be a great remedy for those suffering from cold hands and feet. My feet are still tinglingly warm 2 hours after applying the GSE.
I have the feeling that the GSE will work just as well as the Oregano Oil. I also am trying the GSE on my perioral dermatitis and will report back any improvements. I can tell you that the itchy postules around my nose have disappeared. I had to wash off the GSE after about 20 minutes because it started to burn.
(Gulfport, Mississippi)
08/14/2011
★★★★★
soaking your feet in a diluted solution of Pine-Sol will do the trick for cracked heel fungus... A physician told me this many years ago.... So when one of my children had a foot condition this is what I did and no more problems. Then I use vit. E or a lanolin and I personally use "duct" tape to cover my heels due to the fact I cannot stand my feet covered when I sleep. My condition started after Katrina when we were so involved with the clean up and I have tried everything!!!! Pine-Sol did the trick! YAY!!!
Antifungal Foot Cream, Olive Oil
★★★★★
Apple Cider Vinegar, Kefir
★★★★★
I used the apple cider vinegar with the mother and it felt better but not cured, so in the neck of the KEFIR bottle I discovered a thick white paste forms and I put a finger in there and collect it and apply on top the vinegar and it feels so good .
Skin looks much better. Must be the enzymes. Kefir facials on top of diluted 50/50 apple cider vinegar are also nice. Pour Kefir in hands and apple to all my skin, leave on till next shower.
Kefir soaks LEFT on scalp and hair for an hour before shampoos NICE.
Bandaid, Emery Board, Moisturize
★★★★★
What I haven't been able to do is heal the cracked tip of my finger or thumb. I'll try the vinegar and see if that helps. The band aid therapy works, but I want to eliminate the cause, whatever that may be...
(Kentucky, US)
02/16/2015
(Maryland)
06/13/2015
Great info on the zinc for splitting fingers. I just want to add one thing. My mom whose 60 has had splitting finger tips her whole life which got very bad to the point that it looked like her skin was unravelling at the seems. The lines would follow her fingerprint marks and just seperate like little layers being pulled apart or layers of onion without anything holding them together. She cried and bled out daily and had to stop washing dishes altogether or getting her hands wet. I started getting the same issue when I was 39 after a health issue that left me house ridden for about 4 years.
I one day was leaving my mom's house and she made the remark about her and I being identical in the same way that we are vampires, meaning we don't go out in the sunlight, and it hit me. She never liked going outside during the day all of her life and especially adult life and I had been indoors for a long time when mine started. I had a flash back on vitamin d deficiency causing split fingers in many people tested for their vit d levels as well as vit c levels which contribute to the production of collagen which holds the skin together. I take vit c daily (around 4 to 5k mg) and have for years but mom never took any vitamins and perhaps that is why she had it soo much longer than me, but she started the vit c at 5,000 mg per day which gave her zero diarrhea (this means her body was using up the full amount taken because if her body did not need this much it would have used what she needed and the rest would have gotten spilled over into the intestines as diarrhea which is what is referred to as bowel tolerance) .
I started taking 10,000 iu of vit d along with vit k because the body relies on vit d to activate over 100,000 hormones and functions in the body but needs vit k to process the vit d properly.
Within 2 days my fingers were heeled up and felt soooooooo much better. I would cry from the pain and inflammation from the scores of splits all up and down my fingers.
Mom's fingers healed up wonderfully and she still had problems with feet (heel) fissures but she is now obese as well as diabetic. I found that the so called healthy canola oil is really death waiting to happen and is being forced into our diet under false pretense as heart healthy but in actuality is not healthy at all and there is not even really a such thing as a canola plant. It comes from a hybrid rapeseed plant and has omega 3 added to it afterwards do to the lack of heart healthy ingredients. Labels are now even adding organic to the canola deception but how is this possible when the plant is not even organic in nature.
The true underlying cause of diabetes is using bad oils such as canola(stands for Canadian oil plant) Canada was the first to create it and name it. The bad vegetable oils create an artificial fat wall around the cell which prevents the uptake of glucose (sugar that every cell in the body needs as fuel). This creates an insulin imbalance and takes up to 6 months to undo the damage from one serving of vegetable oil. The imbalance of insulin and glucose now disrupts the electrical balance of the cell. We are all electrical beings who rely on electric as fuel( men have actually given up all foods meat and veg, alike and lived off the power of the sun by sun gazing(google man lives for 15 years without food by sun gazing) we began to eat meat and this in turn lowered our vibrational frequencies.
Back to the bad oils. Never eat margarine or buy into the whole low fat lie because fat actualy allows us to lose weight opposite to what the FDA would have us believe. Lack of fat and high grain intake causes inflammation and disease. Avoid all grains as much as possible not just gluten containing grains. You can reverse all diabetes type 2 from 6 weeks to 6 months depending on weight and diet. Stop all margarines and veg oil intake and follow the budwig diet which is 4% cottage cheese 3 times per day. Mix 1 tablespoon cold pressed flaxseed oil to every 3 tablespoons cottage cheese and stir voraciously. This causes the oil to bind to the fat of the cottage cheese and allows the flaxseed oil to enter the blood stream where it goes to work breaking down the artificial fat wall around the cells so the glucose uptake can regulate itself and put in balance the cells electrical balance. cinnamon can also be added to the mix to help fix the insulin imbalance. Cinnamon acts as a synthetic insulin inside the body.
Sorry to ramble and I only lightly touched the surface and just outlined the concepts mentioned and you should research deeper into the budwig diet and all info mentioned, for yourself. The vit d deficiency was the problem for my hands splitting and the vit c and d defic was mom's problem.
Hope this helps many many people.
God bless you all.
Borax
★★★★★
I recently developed a "rash" on my ankle near my heel. At first I thought it was bug bites. It was a small cluster of red itchy dots. At first I tried ACV and H202 on them, but in a halfhearted way. It didn't really seem to help much. Then I got the idea to use borax, for some reason.
After bathing while my feet were still moist, I took about a teaspoon of borax powder in my hand and rubbed it all over my feet, heels, ankle, between toes, etc. The itching from the rash stopped and my feet felt "good. " I left the powder on my feet (a very thin coat remained) and went to bed. I repeated this for a few nights. The rash has been scabbing over and healing (I still don't know what caused it -- fungus or something else).
But the remarkable thing is the skin on my heels! It is healing, getting softer, younger-looking. My heels had been cracked, dry and ugly for about 5 years! I've been doing this for two weeks now, and the improvement is remarkable.
As well, my toenail fungus and athlete's foot between my toes is going away. I now have "pretty feet" and I am not ashamed to go out wearing my sandals (and no nail polish, either, to hide the ugly nails! They look normal, now).
I have also started applying a homemade ointment to my feet each morning, consisting of coconut oil, aloe, tea tree oil and lavender. This feels soothing and I think it's helping, too, but the borax seems to be the main thing.
Castile Soap
★★★★★
Castile Soap
★★★★★
Castor Oil
★★★★★
I recently read how castor oil helped someone with cracked heels. My girlfriend has been suffering with this for many years. I suggested that she try it. She said within days of applying it and rubbing it in before bed at night, that her heels have never been so smooth and crack free.
Coconut Oil
★★★★★
Hands down, fastest and best results were applying coconut oil and then putting a cotton sock on. I do this twice at night, before or after dinner and then again before going to sleep and in the morning my feet are impressively softer with less indentation in the cracks. Not terribly fond of the coconut oil smell, but learning to live with it!
(Yosemite)
10/22/2018
Not sure if this is helpful, but I had cracked heels such as you describe some years ago. A kidney cleanse and then kidney support program got rid of the problem.
Coconut Oil
★★★★★
The best thing I ever did for my feet is get a good pair of shoes. I loved being barefoot and when I did wear shoes they were flat and light. When I started wearing a good pair of walking shoes with socks everyday my heels got better. With the added heel cream they were like new. I started using a pumice in the tub for daily care and now I use a little heeltastic before I put on my socks and I hardly ever have trouble, only if I have to go a few days in a dress shoe or a flat tennis shoe. I've recently started using coconut oil and it does a good job too, heeltastic is easier and does a great job. Also I love the ped egg! Not the grater part but the smoother part, feet like a baby!
Comfrey-Aloe
★★★★★
So, I started rubbing it on my feet everyday and it totally works for me. I haven't had to file my feet in years. However, it does nothing for toenail issues. I learned this the hard way once I realized by abandoning my coconut oil, my toe nails started having issues again (fungus, I assume). Now I rub the coconut oil into most of my feet, especially toe nails, and the comfrey-aloe product into my heels and any other dry areas. My feet have been looking and feeling pretty good with this routine.
Crisco Shortening
★★★★★
(Springtown, TX)
08/12/2023
★★★★★
This just reminded me of my aunt, who at 80 had no wrinkles. I asked her what she did and she told me she hated her skin to feel dry, so she always kept Crisco on it. Uck, but no wrinkles at 80!
Dietary Changes
★★★★★
