Podiatrist Sally Child has been treating ballet dancers for over a decade, including artists from the Australian Ballet, and regularly sees skin problems like corns, calluses and blisters, and nail problems, including in-grown, bruised or infected nails.
Child says the most common issue she sees is the development of soft corns between dancers’ toes. Like hair and nails, corns are a skin secretion composed of the protein keratin, any one of a class of fibrous protein molecules that serve as structural units for various living tissues. The keratins are the major protein components of hair, wool, nails, horn, hoofs, and the quills of feathers.
Soft corns between the toes have the potential to become infected and can be very painful, and dancers should not attempt to remove them themselves. This needs to be done by a professional as it quite often involves the use of a sterile scalpel blade to remove the corns, and prescription of antibiotics to treat the infection.
This is an extract from “Foot Notes”, by Astrid Lawton, in the current (June/July) issue of Dance Australia. Buy the issue and find more foot problems and their cures!