Case Summary  |  Excema on my toes - I found a reasonable (but not perfect) solution!

Describe what happened, how you treated it, and what's going on today

I have excema on my toes. It goes from the ends of my toes onto my feet a little past my toes. It is the worst between my toes. I tried seeing doctors but the prescriptions weren't very effective for me. If I take care of the problem as soon as it starts to appear, I can almost always manage it for awhile then it goes away for the most part. If I don't take care of the problem, it gets horrible. My toes look bright red, the skin flakes off, there are big cracks, and they bleed from all over the place. Horrible looking and it can get horribly painful! Hopefully other people will see how I have managed the problem and the same things will work for them. The doctors do have prescriptions for excema. But for me, avoiding even a tiny bit of moisture at the beginning of a recurrence helps so much more.

Routinely changing socks throughout the day helps a lot. The new socks have to be clean and dry. Changing shoes helps if the shoes I am wearing are even a little wet. If the excema is not very visible and inflamed I don't have to change them. The worse it is at the time, the more often I change them. Also taking off shoes and socks in the evening helps in theory, but only if you don't step in water that someone spilled or get your feet even a little wet. Bed rest doesn't make the excema better but it prevents the problem from getting much more painful from walking around. By range of motion I mean trying to avoid letting the inflamed skin touch any surface any more than is necessary. It is a very temporary fix that works for a very short time. I squish my toes together and try to walk more on my heels. That alleviates the pain while I find a better solution. But by default if your skin isn't touching one thing it is probably touching something else, so this is very temporary. If you do this for very long the problem gets much worse instead of better. Avoiding moisture and frequent changing into clean dry socks and shoes is definitely the best solution for me!