Flooding can be horrible at times, as has been seen in Port of Spain and parts of South. With flooding, you want to clear away debris and return to your normal life. If you are walking through town, you just want to get out of the mess. What people don’t always realise, are the dangers still lying beneath the water and rubble, that can cause serious injury to feet and ankles.

The American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons suggests taking some simple precautions to protect feet from injury, and to help make the flood clean up go more quickly and safely.

• Watch where you walk. Debris and murky floodwaters can conceal sharp objects like nails and broken glass. Be careful when standing on unstable surfaces, and piles of debris that can throw you off balance, causing ankle sprains or fractures.
• Wear appropriate shoes. Whole shoes are preferred. Avoid going barefoot or wearing open-toed footwear like sandals, to prevent injury and puncture wounds.
• Immediately treat cuts and puncture wounds. To help prevent infections, including bone infections, wash cuts and puncture wounds with clean water, then apply a topical antibiotic and a clean bandage. Puncture wounds require medical treatment within 24 hours, to avoid infection and other complications from embedded, contaminated foreign objects. Orthopaedic surgeons and Podiatrists can help treat puncture wounds and other traumatic injuries of the foot and ankle.

Tips for Maintenance

The rainy season is often the harshest for our feet, because all the mud and water keep touching our feet. The dirt can even settle into our cracked heels. Here are some tips to ensure that your feet keep looking, and feeling good all year round. 

• Soak: Every once in a while, try giving yourself a foot soak for deep level cleansing of your feet. A soak is best done in warm water. You can add some Epsom salts. Soak your feet for about ten to fifteen minutes, so that the skin softens. Keep reinserting your feet into the soak as the steps go by.
• Cuticles: Cuticles are bits of dead skin that appear from the base of your toe nails. They are most often seen on toe nails, because of how much we tend to ignore our feet. For this, you will need a wooden cuticle stick to help push back your cuticles. Your dead skin will have softened already due to the soaking of your feet, so it will be easy to push back the cuticles and remove them in doing so.
• Dead Skin: Next, you have to focus on removing the dead skin. Just like your face, your feet would accumulate dead skin too; sometimes a lot more than your face does, since the skin on the feet is a lot tougher and thicker. For this, you would need a brush with soft bristles to gently brush away the dead skin cells, to reveal a softer foot. Believe me, when you’re done, your feet will be softer than you’ve ever known them to be.
• Cut Your Nails: Just like every other aspect of the feet, the nails too are ignored, while the finger nails get all the attention and look pretty all the time. This isn’t just for the sake of looking pretty, but also for hygiene. If you do not cut the nails on your feet, they will accumulate dirt from walking around all day, and in extreme conditions, this can also lead your feet to start smelling horrible.
• Use A Foot Scrub: Earlier, you had used a brush to get rid of the rough and scaly skin on your heels. Using a scrub is for the top of your feet, since a brush can be a bit too harsh for the skin there. You can use any kind of a scrub you like, but we find menthol-based scrubs to be the best for the feet, as they give a cooling sensation when applied. Gently scrub the skin for a few minutes and then go back to soaking the feet.

Don’t like to, or can’t  maintain your feet yourself? You can also do a pedicure; the choice is yours. Just don’t neglect your feet, especially if you’re diabetic!

What are the bad things?

• Maceration: This is where the skin’s outer layer absorbs and gets “soggy” from moisture. The skin gets sore and extremely soft, which makes it more prone to blistering and development of other problems.
• Cracking of the skin: When it dries, the natural moisture and oiliness are gone. The severity depends on how much stress the skin is exposed to, after it is dried out.

Down comes the rain again, are you prepared?

Your feet mirror your general health . . . cherish them!