Bare Feet

[jbeegoode]

I couldn't find a thread on barefeet, barefoot all over. I'm surprised that the topic hasn't popped up, kicked out, stepped forward.

Soon, I've got a seven part series about it to publish on TheFreeRangeNaturist.org, but as I was setting it up, I stumbled onto a problem with free range barefooting.

I've been laid up for a couple of weeks with extreme pain in a localized section of my left foot. I stepped on a cholla cactus needle, mainlining into the nerve, precisely where Morten;s Nueroma had been messing with me. All the barefooting that I have done in recent years, no probs and I get three of these needles within an hour. Were the Cholla plants angry? Was it some weird karma, what are the odds?

Anyway, there I sat at the doctor's offices confronted by antibiotics, pain pills, tetanus shots and steroids. Perhaps this talk of ours as natural and healthy barefooting needs to be tempered with practical natural history. Infection and tetanus has been a part of and often deadly part of life for the duration.

I'm suggesting a tetanus booster. Just in case. I haven't gotten one since 1968, but maybe, if I'm going to be out there naked, it might be a good precaution.

Jbee
Barefoot all over all over

[Greenbare Woods]

OUCH!   

Sorry about the cactus.  We have pine needles which often penetrate feet, but no cactus around here.  On another forum someone complained about blackberries and bare feet.  Some plants are just a hazard for every king of other animal, and maybe that's why some have hoofs.

[nudewalker]

I remember the warnings as a child to be careful and not step on a rusty nail. The cactus needle was much the same and my father's voice ringing in my ear "See' I told you" as the nurse administered the tetanus shot. Later my years as a medic necessitated updated doses of tetanus vaccine so as a routine I get updated.

Sorry to hear of your plight. I was really looking forward to another adventure story from you and DF. Heal quickly my friend!

[Davie]

We were warned to be careful whilst staying at a naturist gite in France. The danger to bare feet was walking on a bee. There were quite a few about pollinating the clover. I did bare walk bare foot but watched were I walked with more care than usual

Davie 

[balead]

I've stepped on bees at least twice, once this year. It made me really regret it for a few days!

[jbeegoode]

I used to play golf barefoot as a teen. One day, I was playing the best game of my life. There was a patch of clover in the middle of the fairway where my ball lay.

I got nailed by a bee, the score ran into double digits per hole.

Some clubs don't allow bare feet. My game improves remarkably when barefoot, even better nude.
Jbee

[Davie]

I've never really been one for dancing but I love it when naked. We had a cèilidh at one event and I noticed that nearly every one, as well as being naked had removed their footwear. Footwear just seemed so unnecessary and heavy. Doesn't hurt so much if someone treads on your foot either!

Davie 

[kzoobob]

A few years ago I was splitting wood for the wood burning stove in shoes and a sweat shirt. I managed to stir up a nest of yellow jackets and get bitten several times. I told my wife, "Emergency Room". While on the way the headlights of oncoming cars started to get fuzzy. At the ER they treated me to raise my BP (my usual problem is high BP). Since one of the bites was high on my thigh they were kidding me about going commando. They were surprised when I told them what I had actually been wearing.

[eyesup]

When I was a kid I was always climbing trees, exploring and poking my nose in where probably it shouldn't have been. I had my fair share of run-ins with yellow jackets to the point that I was probably on their "favorite places to visit" list.

When I was still in grade school we were visiting with some friends at their lake house. We were playing out on the shore and I was running on the pier and stirred up a nest underneath. I was stung 7-8 times. One of the little buggers got me right below my left eye. I looked like I had been in a fight and got tagged with a respectable right hook.

The man who we were visiting was a painter, of the house variety. This was in the mid sixties so not many painters used spray equipment. He climbed up ladders and painted the trim and such with brushes. He also was aquainted with bees and wasps and had his special treatments.

Apparently the standard response by painters to a sting was to dab a bit of paint thinner on the site. I guess it has the effect of drawing out the venom. It worked. All the stings did not swell up with the exception of the sting on my face. He was hesitant to put paint thinner that close to my eye.

There are many natural substances that will do the same thing but you use what you have available.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

I published the first in that barefoot series. It is just an experiential mindfulness thing, that I thought may have been placed here first, but maybe TSNS, not too long ago. There are probably 10 installments that will be placed in between the trip reports, weekly. They are things that I accumulated through the years and cobbled together.
http://thefreerangenaturist.org/2015/10/15/barefoot-all-over-all-over-part-one/
Jbee

[nuduke]

I used to play golf barefoot as a teen

In the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to walk barefoot on a few golf courses and have been amazed by the velvet soft, carpet-like, consistency that the groundsmen seem to be able to achieve. The two nicest were at Pebble Beach CA which was perplexing how they got it so fine and soft and the Weston-Kirtin Hotel at Phoenix AZ where I walked at night in jbee and DF's footsteps on the cool, soft sward of the fairway and lay naked with them under the stars on the baize-like fineness of one of the greens. The most challenging was last December, on the frosty and altogether less even fairway and greens of a golf course in the north east of England.

I was at the chiropodists yesterday getting my callouses reduced and the chiropodist was generally very complementary about my propensity for going barefoot, eschewing the wearing of male hosiery. 

Jbee, I'm so sorry to hear about your cactus thorn injury and how long it's taking to heal.  Must have been very bad puncture. I can sympathise because I stepped on a cut branch of hawthorn in my garden last week and whilst the injury was more minor, I was unaware that a part of a thorn had broken off in my heel, until it became a little inflamed and painful.  I was able to cut back the skin and extract the offending pricker and the pain and swelling receded, apparently healed, in about 3 days.  However, a week later, having had the hard skin removed from my heel, the cavity was still there and healing under the scab that had quickly regrown over the top. I think I ought to go for a tetanus booster from that and the fact that I was helping some people remove a load of rotten wood a few weeks ago and a rusty old nail poked me in the chest just slightly breaking the skin and drawing blood.  What's the incubation period for tetanus?

I have to work hard to keep my heels and big toes from getting too calloused.  Whilst a small amount of harder dry skin does provide a measure of protection whilst barefooting, if left, it gets thicker until it cracks.  My feet have been much more well kept in recent years (well probably decades!) since I realised I should maintain them more actively and so I go to the chiropodist 3 or 4 times a year and in the interim, thanks to some ancient advice from our much-missed, now non-combatant correspondent Graham, who was a podiatrist, I sandpaper my feet regularly which keeps them smooth, cosmetically maintained and not cracked. 

What do others do about foot condition maintenance?  Is it a problem for others?

John

[milfmog]

What do others do about foot condition maintenance?

I don't generally suffer from hard skin build up or cracked heels. However, having once had a heel crack I realised how painful and inconvenient it could be and so developed a continuing preventative maintenance programme.

I use a "Ped egg" (best described as a surform or grater for the feet) to remove hard skin. Once a month a quick going over the heels is plenty and leaves the skin with a slightly leathery texture. I then use Body Shop "hemp foot balm" to soften the skin slightly. I may sometimes apply a second treatment of the balm part way through the month. For the last eight or nine years, that is all I have required.

Have fun,


Ian.

PS I recently had a hawthorn spine go right through the sole of a shoe and a good quarter of an inch into the ball of my foot. That made my eyes water! Carefully pulling and twisting with a pair of fine nosed pliers before I removed the shoe was sufficient to get it out of my foot in one piece (one of the things the generally lives in my car is a cheap multi-tool; this was not what I expected to use it for but...). All that was required afterwards was a dab with TCP soaked cotton wool and a sticky plaster to keep it clean for a day or so while it healed.

[Greenbare Woods]

What do others do about foot condition maintenance?  Is it a problem for others?
John

I sometimes get cracked calluses around the back of my heels.   My remedy has been to use a commercial foot cream after my shower.  I use "Gold Bond" foot cream or other similar products.  It lets the callus be soft enough not to crack clear through. 

[jbeegoode]

I'm probably down to a couple of hours a week deep massaging my feet. I use Bag Balm to keep the cracks away.

Three to 30 days for tetanus, generally much closer to the former. Tetanus wasn't completely ruled out, by the nurse practitioner, but likely would have appeared by the time that she saw me, ten day later. She said that it can stay local, as well as the more classic malady.
Jbee

[nuduke]

I noticed, Ian, at AHG in August that you had very svelte soles for someone that does as much walking as you.  Now I know the secret!  My wife uses a ped egg.  Maybe I should get one too - the sandpaper might not be enough.

I hope your foot continues steady recovery Jbee.

John