Corn Free Foot in 5 months

It all started when I switched from my Crocs to something more fashionable.
Hard wooden pumps to be exact. Awww shucks,they were on half price, how could a girl resist?
Pounded the streets and malls with it.Compounded it further with a spot of swimming on the side.

Wrote off the circle of hardening skin just above the arch of my foot, as just an ordinary callus, something a regular pedicure session would solve.

Then it got angrier till I felt such intense pain as if I were walking on a small pebble lodged into my skin.
Soon I was walking with a slight limp, to keep the weight from aggrevating it further.
Did nothing in the least to ease my suffering.

Someone suggested a corn remover application ,the kind you can get off the shelf from any pharmacy.
Salicylic acid?
I turned to the net.

Decided on ....get this.....the humble banana skin.

It worked,but only after 5 months of trial and error.

Let me relate my experience to you so you don't end up with the same mistakes I did.

Nobody seemed to know the correct method for this natural cure.

 1st Night

I used a large plastic boot (the kind you use to spa soak your feet and is sold in cheap $5 stores like Daiso,I got mine from Taiwan),and put a layer of Montel banana skin,soft side upwards, in direct contact with my sole,inside.

You'll know you're doing the right thing if you can feel the initial pain throbbing a terrible ache right through your bones after the 3rd hour or so,when the banana peel has turned black due to oxidization.
Second night,I continued with the treatment.

3rd Night

On the 3rd however,I got a bit fed up with the inconvenient sticky mess.

Thus got myself a kind of sticky first aid plaster that comes in a roll and you can cut it according to the length you want.

This time I cut the banana skin to size, squarish shaped, and plastered it in place.
Had the freedom to walk around but beware again of the moisture that it will create.You might need to replace the plaster often.
Didn't know that and ended up throwing everything including the skin away,starting afresh and ending up frustrated each time the plaster got soaked and detached eventually.

 Week 2

Only on the second week did I realise that I should not have thrown away the skin and started afresh,as it is most effective when the skin of the banana has turned black.

It was also when I discovered not to use the skin from our local Malaysian banana species as they are thinner,get squashed easily and frankly do not work at all.

Also it is best to buy those with thick skins, when they are still a shade green,if possible, as it's effectiveness weakens the more the fruit ripens.

Week 3

A hole the size of 2 orange pips,had formed where the corn had settled.

Scary as it looked, I rejoiced and thought that was the end of my problems,but it was not to be.

See,no one knew how to tackle the big hole in your foot situation.
Big hole means I should continue the application until the hole closes up.
Alternating between exposing your skin between continous nightly applications.
But I didn't know that,yet.

Enter month number 2

The corn grew back with a vengeance.

Again I ignored it till it reached the point of a gorging mini volcano that wouldn't expell its contents.

This time,I threw up the white flag and paid the pharmacist for the acid.

Woah....3 days of application did more harm than good.

The virus had somehow managed to get my own skin to form a protective armour around it,to stop the acid from causing further damage. 

This time the skin around the corn not only looked so darn ugly and deformed,it grew so big,I contemplated buying a wheelchair to get me around.

Serious. It was bad.

I knew bananas could get me out of this rut again.

But unlike before it took a heck of a longer time this round.Probably because I used the acid from the pharmacy.

Plus I needed the help of a sharp pair of small scissors to cut around the skin that has turned white because of the acid that I had earlier used.
Leave the normal toned skin alone.Bear with it and cut away the white part as long as there is no pain and you draw no blood.

3 months later

Success..the skin had evened itself out and unlike before when the hole was huge,this time it's the size of a hard grain of sand.

Continue monitoring your feet and reach for bananas at the first sign of trouble.

I have not had a recurrence compared to those who used off the counter pharmaceutical applications.

Why not surgery

Believe me, I did toy with the idea.

However,sufferers who had undergone the knife related that
unless,the bone nearest to the affected area was scraped thoroughly, you risk a relapse. Worse still the corn grows back in even more places than before. Instead of one corn, it could spread into five more !

Why not pharmaceutical applications ?

They don't work.
Only makes it worse.

What do you need again ?

1. Thick,fresh Montel banana skins . Very ripe ones which have spots on them are ineffective.
2. Rolls of sticky plaster that you can cut to length
3. Sharp pedicure scissors to cut away at dead skin
4. Lots of patience and perseverance

Things I learnt from this

Never look down on the humble banana again.It is a lifesaver.

A corn is not a callus when it starts to grow and causes discomfort.
It is caused by a virus and if you decide to opt for surgery,the procedure has to be carried out in such a way that source has got to be scrapped from the core,to the edges of the bone in your foot,in order to prevent a reoccurence.

Start treatment every night,and stick with it till the centre drops out and your skin eventually covers the ugly looking hole.

Expose the banana skin to quicken oxidization before starting.

If you are short of time,keep the blackened,used skins in a ziplock bag to retain the moisture and reuse for up to a maximum of 3 nights.

Cut away at white dead softened skin if you have used corn or callus applications before this.
This cut away method is not recommended if you are diabetic or susceptible to skin infections.
In which case,it might take longer than months but what you want to achieve in the end is a foot free of painful corns that doesn't spawn another bunch of baby corns elsewhere on your foot while you're at it.

And this is the only method on earth that can guarantee it.