Oh No! My Feets! Part 2

I have a major hang nail. Don't you hate hang nails? Try walking on one.

Remember back in August when my feet were hurting? Oh No! My Feets! (part 1 as it turns out. Who knew.) We weren't really sure what the problem was as it was rather vague and I just felt generally uncomfortable. Well, a month or two later, we spotted a definitive answer. Even though my soreness was mild, and there was little physical evidence, and no particular spot could be pinpointed with poking or prodding or hoof testers... the light finally dawned. There was an abcess that worked it's way up and out at my coronary band. It took a few months for the edges of the crack of the "exit wound" to dry and curl and become more evident as it grew down my hoof wall.

Here is a photo from the other blog entry.

Everything looks OK, but if you magnify it and look, you can see the evidence. Riiiiiight there....

When it grew about half an inch down the wall, the mechanical forces of me standing on it caved it a just a bit and it became a ridge. Brita just watched it. We knew when it reached the clinch line it would become an issue. My shoes were pulled for the winter like usual and we waited.

Last week, the edge was really curled and beginning to crack downward (better than upward) at the ends. So Brita got out the nippers and trimmed the edge so it wouldn't catch on anything and wouldn't be funneling mud. What she found was a sizable void behind the wall which would be the site of the original abcess. You can't really see the depth of the hole, but she says you could almost fit a whole chapstick in there, whatever that is.

You can see that the front end of the crack is on target with an old clinch hole. We run the risk of a tear out there.

Thankfully the back edge is well away from the soft tender part of my heel because you can see below that it has cracked through the weight bearing surface into my sole. It flexes when I walk and is now to be considered a bonafide hangnail. My podiatrist has been called, and he will be coming soon to make a recommendation on how best to minimise the inevitable.