Dr. Ayan Goswami, DPM

To treat your ingrown toenail at home, try these things first:

1. Warm water soaks for about 20 minutes several times a day.
2. Take a small thin cotton, dip it in tea tree oil or olive oil. Next, apply the thin cotton between your skin and the ingrown nail. This will pushing skin away from the toenail edge.
3. There are some over the counter medications you can use such as topical antibiotic to prevent infection.
4. If home treatment does not work within 48hrs and the pain worsens, please follow up with your doctor.

Calluses are most commonly treated by shaving them down with a sharp blade or using a machine to thin out the calloused skin. Best results are achieved by applying keratolytic cream, such as urea cream or gel to slow down the thickness of the callous.

A thick callus can increase pressure on the bottom of your foot, resulting in possible wounds or infections. If the callouses are reoccurring, there are both conservative and surgical treatments out there to help with your symptoms.

Ingrown toenails looks like: the edge or corner of the the nail burrows into the skin adjacent to the nail. The skin border becomes red, sometimes swells, and is painful to touch. Most commonly affected ingrown toenail is the big toe. If you start to feel pain while walking or wearing shoes, and you notice the corner of the toe is turning red, chances are it's probably an ingrown toenail.

Several reasons for Ingrown nail to recur. Recurs more commonly on athletically active people. Athletics who play stop and start sports such as basketball, tennis or soccer. The sudden stop and start may cause the skin around the nail border to push against the nail border, infecting and irritating it.

Improper shoe gear is another cause for recurrence as well as people with flatfoot can sometimes get it as well. Another reason may be due to a previous trauma to the nail, causing the actual nail to thicken and grow curved. Sometimes a bony exostosis or subungual exostosis, which is a small bone growth that occurs under the toenail.

So.... if the ingrown nail keeps coming back, follow up with a podiatrist to discuss couple of treatment options to remove the corner of the nail. This will prevent you from getting infections or foot wound from the repeat ingrown.

There are non-surgical options to help reduce the painful symptoms of bunion. Just keep in mind, these treatment options won't necessarily reduce the bony prominence on the side of the foot.

He most certainly can protect the bony prominence of the bunion with gel-filled pad or cushion, over the counter. Bunions can occur due to flatfoot. For that, correcting the pronation of the foot via orthotic devices will help with the pain from the bunion.

A good pair of wide toe shoes will often reduce the symptoms from painful bunion. There are some devices you can buy over the counter: toe spacers or bunion splints, which will help stretch the joint which won’t realign your toe permanently, but it should sometimes help reduce the symptoms.

It depends on which part of the foot is broken. Based upon the location of the broken bone on the foot will determine how long it will take. The general rule of thumb is 6-8 weeks for a foot fracture. Having said that, it's important that you're doing your best to stay off the broken foot. It's always a good idea to have an off-loading shoe or crutches to keep pressure off the broken bone. I

If it is a toe fracture, buddy taping the broken toe and wearing a surgical shoe helps reduce the range of motion of the broken bone and may reduce time in bone healing.

It is best to have the broken bone evaluated by a podiatrist to come up with a proper fracture protocol to help prevent any complications such as a non-union fracture.

Foot care is very important for people with diabetes. Foot complications are common for this condition. Diabetes play a role in decreasing blood supply to the lower extremity, which may result in slower healing and infections. Patients with advanced stage diabetes may lose sensation on their feet due to nerve damage.

Nerve damage caused by diabetes may results in complex ulcers and infections from minor cuts and scraps, simply because the patient is unaware of having injured their foot due to lack of sensation. Diabetic neuropathy may cause burning, irritating sensation which prevents patients from walking, running, etc.

It's recommended that patients with diabetes get their feet checked atleast once a year by their podiatrist.

Although arch supports can certainly help patients with history of painful neuroma, it is not the only treatment. When the nerve along the interspace of your foot becomes irritated, a growth of nerve tissue occurs. This benign, non-cancerous, growth of nerve tissue in the foot (most commonly between the 3rd and 4th toes) is called a neuroma. The exact causes of Morton's neuroma are still not known. Best treatment option is to actually shrink the nerve growth. There are several ways of shrinking the growth which include cortisone and, my favorite, alcohol sclerosing injections. The sclerosing agent delivered to the nerve site will physically shrink the growth and remove the symptoms associated with painful neuroma. When all else fails, surgery to excise the neuroma is always an option.

Athlete's foot is a fungal infection which often starts from the interspaces of the toes and spread throughout the foot. Patients will often complain of uncontrolled itching sensation, scaly rash that usually causes stinging and burning. These fungal infections tend to occur because your feet are constantly hot, sweaty and moist. It's a perfect environment for fungus to grow. Best way to get rid of it is to keep your feet dry.

If you're feet sweat a lot, try using antiperspirant foot spray. In addition to keeping the foot dry, initial treatment often includes an antifungal topical or oral (depending on the severity of the symptoms).

Surgery for heel spur is usually not the 1st line of treatment for a patient experiencing heel pain. Often times doctors will dry physical therapy, cortisone injections, orthotics before seriously considering surgical intervention. When conservative measures fail, then surgery is a solution.

Heel spur/plantar fasciitis surgery is generally a same day procedure done as an out patient. The recovery time after heel spur surgery is generally three to four weeks. The first week you're walking with a cam walker/boot with crutch assistance. By week three and four, your stitches should be removed and you're back wearing sneakers.

Plantar warts or verruca plantaris is caused by an invading virus, HPV, that enters through the skin on the bottom of the foot. Plantar warts are not usually symptomatic for weeks or even months. They are most commonly found in public showers (gym showers), swimming pools, gyms, etc. Warts are more common in children and individuals with autoimmune disease who have weak immune systems.

There are at home exercises that you can certainly do to help ease your heel spur pain. Although taking over the counter Motrin and Aleve is a good start, studies have shown that a combination of anti inflammatory medications along with stretching exercises for heel pain helps more. In addition to stretching, apply ice three or four times a day for about 10-15 minutes. Wrap an ice pack in a damp towel and place it on the heel.

Wearing an OTC night-splint at night might also help. The splint stretches the calf which in turn help reduce the discomfort.

Sometimes the best and quickest way to reduce heel pain is to change shoes. Wearing high heel shoes or narrow dress shoes increase pressure to the heel bone and plantar fascial ligament, which in turn, will cause heel pain. Changing your shoes is sometimes the quickest way to reduce heel pain.

If all else fails, it's best to follow up with your podiatrist for help. If it has become a chronic issue, then the next steps may be cortisone injections, custom orthotics and lastly surgery.

Best options at this point would be to follow up with a wound care podiatrist or to go to a wound care center. Systemic factors such as diabetes, auto-immune diseases, kidney diseases, venous insufficiency and age all can play a role in wound healing and contribute in the healing potential of his wound.

If the wound is not healing, it would be best to follow through with a wound care specialists to determine what other factors are playing a roll in your grandfather's chronic wound.

Foot odor is mainly due to the presence of fungus or bacteria. The buildup of fungus and bacteria is caused mainly due to hot moist environment produced from closed toe shoes, boots, etc. There are a few ways to eliminate bacteria on the feet that could be causing odor.

1. Vinegar Soak: (1/4 vinegar to 3/4 water)
2. Applying antiperspirants, such as over the counter spray on deodorant antiperspirant.
3. If antiperspirant spray do not work, then ask your doctor for prescription antiperspirants (Drysol) to the feet before bedtime.
4. A more natural way would be to soak your feet in tea. Remove the bags and dilute the tea with a bowl of warm water. Let the mixture cool, then soak for 30 minutes daily. The tannic acid in strong black tea is known to remove bacterial buildup and reduce sweating as well.

The best and safest thing to do would be to follow up with a podiatrist. There is very small amount of skin and soft tissue between the nail and the bone. The thin layer of protection that is covering the bone is called the nail bed. If, for any reason, the toe injury caused a laceration to the nail bed, it must be cleaned and sometimes stitches must be applied and of course a course of antibiotics. It would be highly recommended that you follow up with your podiatrist.

There are at home exercises that you can certainly do to help ease your heel spur pain. Although taking over the counter Motrin and Aleve is a good start, studies have shown that a combination of anti inflammatory medications along with stretching exercises for heel pain helps more. In addition to stretching, apply ice three or four times a day for about 10-15 minutes. Wrap an ice pack in a damp towel and place it on the heel.

Wearing an OTC night-splint at night might also help. The splint stretches the calf which in turn help reduce the discomfort.

Sometimes the best and quickest way to reduce heel pain is to change shoes. Wearing high heel shoes or narrow dress shoes increase pressure to the heel bone and plantar fascial ligament, which in turn, will cause heel pain. Changing your shoes is sometimes the quickest way to reduce heel pain.

If all else fails, it's best to follow up with your podiatrist for help. If it has become a chronic issue, then the next steps may be cortisone injections, custom orthotics and lastly surgery.