Corns and calluses are not pretty things and when you treat them with salicylic acid, well, viewer discretion is advised! Thankfully, while I get some mild calluses on my feet, I don't have to deal with the unsightly corns that have been plaguing hubs recently.
Both corns and calluses are thickened skin on areas of pressures (mostly the feet). They tend to be flaky and may appear as bumps. Sometimes they are painful. In hub's case, his corn wasn't painful at all but it is quite gross to see him constantly picking at it with the nail clippers. To him it was strangely therapeutic and fun. To the onlookers like me, it is just plain gross -.- Anyway, the main difference between corns and calluses is that the latter is more diffused and flat whilst the former may appear to have a "spike" or conical in appearance.
Anyway, to stop hub's itchy hands, especially after finding out that unprofessional attempts to pare the corn may lead to infection of the surrounding skin, I decided to take things into my own hand and forcibly applied the Hansaplast Corn Plaster on him.
The plaster looks like a typical one, except that there is a foam ring in the middle which is suppose to go directly on the corn itself. At times, we found it difficult to "aim" the ring onto the corn, but it could just be us. Also, since the corn is on the feet, the plaster can be easily detached if you did not do it properly so remember to apply it after you have bathed and dried yourself!
For the concerned, corn plaster attempt to treat the problem using salicylic acid, which is a chemical that pares the skin, dissolving keratin (protein) that makes up most of the corn and thickened dead skin. Well, if that does not sound gross enough, maybe the pictures across the days we applied the plaster will change your mind. I applied all 8 plasters over the past week on hubs, and this was what we got at the end.
As you can see, it slowly turns the skin white and allows the dead tissues to be trimmed off more easily (what wait? did I just get played by my hubs?). According to the instructions though, after 4 days of application, we should remove the corn in a warm salt or soap bath. Hubs used our bathroom stone coral to rub off the skin after lathering the white spot with soap.
Well, white it did become, but I don't really think it solved the problem entirely. Of course hubs was enthused about being able to remove an entire piece of skin from his feet so I guess it did have some use after all. However, truth be told, I highly doubt paring the corn did anything but aggravate the wound so I don't think we would ever use such a product again.
Ps. a note of caution - if you have sensitive skin, is diabetic and/or have circulatory disorders, please seek medical advice before using such products.
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