Toenail Fungus

Personally I'm just a bit nervous about wearing sandals on a bike, but ran into something interesting about not wearing shoes. According to one website, 50% of Americans have toenail fungus by the time they are 70. That was the highest figure I saw, so it might be lower or a lot lower than that.

Another quote: "Toenail fungus is a common condition, and nearly 12 percent of Americans have it." everydayhealth.com One contributing factor is shoes. Keeping your feet in a damp smelly environment helps the fungus get its start.

From the Mayo Clinic: "These infections usually develop on nails continually exposed to warm, moist environments, such as sweaty shoes or shower floors." mayoclinic.com

On the web sites you find while looking for a cure, they seem to love to mention that the best cure is prevention. Just great when a lot of people have never heard of it until they start wondering "Wtf is this?" and start looking for a cure. It was certainly never mentioned when I went to school. Wouldn't it be nice if they taught some things that have a little practical use? It has never made the slightest difference to me to know precisely when Columbus accidentally bumped into America.

A woman I knew came up with the idea of making sleeping bags covered with rubber, then you might not even need a tent. I thought of a possible problem. "If you do that your whole body might smell the way your feet do when you take them out of rubber boots at the end of the day." "Say no more. You've talked me out of it." The interesting thing to me is that we wouldn't even think of doing to any other part of our body the things we do to our feet.

The fungus is nasty stuff and difficult to get rid of. Some people give up on getting rid of it because of the unpleasant cures. The last resort is pills that you take, which is definitely a long way to go to get rid of something in your toenail. Once it is established in toenails, it can spread to fingernails possibly helped by all the effort the person might be putting in to try to get rid of it from their toenails.

I've taken my shoes off in the house for years. It does keep it a lot cleaner and has other advantages. For example, if the wife wants you to wipe up the beer you spilled on the coffee table, you just wipe your foot across the table and it's gone without you even having to get up. (No, I'm not serious in case anyone is wondering.) I do wear shoes biking to work, but they come off quickly once I get there and are replaced by sandals.

So, get out of shoes any chance you get isn't exactly my motto, but it is something I do.