comfortable shoes make a big difference

I worked a nursing shift today. Apart from colleagues, I rarely miss it when I'm not there, but I enjoy it when I am. The perfect harmony of casual work... if only I achieved this frame of mind more often.

Nice as it was to have a shift and the thought of more money (maybe I can buy some of this yummy yarn after all!), I was dreading eight hours on my feet. That wart I wrote about back in November... it still plagues me. Stubborn, nasty wart. And it hurts. Sometimes a lot.

Any normal person would, I suppose, have given in and resorted to a more conventional treatment like Scholl Freeze Verruca and Wart Remover. But not me. Oh no, I am made of sterner stuff. I am, in fact, sterner than a stern wart. Potato, propolis, dandelion sap, more potato and now tea tree oil... these are the remedies I have resorted to, and that darn wart just keeps on going. Right when I begin to hope it is going away (because every remedy has worked to a degree), the pain comes back and I can barely walk. To ease the pain I curl my toes, or hobble on the side of my foot. Before I know it my foot aches, my leg hurts and my back is crinked. I keep setting time limits on when I will give up and go the big freeze, but the pain eases just on the deadline and I give the tea tree oil a reprieve. Because it is working. A little. Certainly the pain has been less the last week or two. I think the wart may even be getting smaller.

Standing on your feet all day and plantar warts do not mix so well, only adding to my dread at being on my feet all day. Which brings me to another factor in the saga of the wart - shoe selection. It's all about appearances. Feet must look good, and shoes must match the outfit. (and the handbag if you are particular). So I limp along in shoes patently unsuitable to be paired with a plantar wart. Have you noticed the nonexistence of soles in shoe fashions today? Develop a verruca wart and you will. Walking one millimetre off the ground is, at best, unpleasant and, at worst, downright agonising when a stone pokes right through into the wart.

So today I got tough and strong and threw my fashion conscience aside. I wore running shoes all day.

And it was marvellous! My little foot felt so much better! Still a few twinges here and there, but nothing like the usual level of pain.

Of course I'm hoping this means the wart is about to disappear *poof* into thin air. Let it be so, let it be so. But if, perchance, the shoe really was the trick, perhaps (just perhaps) I should place comfort over fashion? In the interest of analgesia, good posture and natural gait? Can I do it?

Hmmm, not sure on that one - but hey, comfortable shoes make a huge difference! This should not be revelatory, but somehow it is.

cecily's natural home remedies

I'm a bit embarrassed to say, but I have a plantar wart on the ball of my left foot. I, who never get a wart (apart from those two in high school which I killed with the aid of a trusty potato), have a wart of the worst variety. Plantar warts grow deep and hurt.

Being a bit of a natural remedy freak, I thought I'd try and knock this wart off without resorting to liquid nitrogen, freezing, or cutting holes in my foot, starting with the potato remedy. I know this works, because as I said above, I've killed warts in the past by slicing a thin piece of potato and rubbing its juice on the wart morning and evening. Over the course of a few weeks, the wart turns black and starts falling apart before disappearing completely. When we met, Frank had a whopper wart over a knuckle, and no amount of freezing had worked. Potato presto - the wart was gone and has never returned.

The trick with killing a wart with potato is liberal, frequent application. Since the bottom of my foot is not a part of my body I often look at, I kept forgetting to do it, and so the wart remained. Next stop propolis. I had no idea if this would work or not, but I love propolis. It kills tinea in a trice and is just a nice, natural remedy I keep for all sorts of cuts and abrasions. If it kills tinea, I figured it was worth trying it on my wart, since a wart is a benign skin tumour caused by a virus.

And it worked. The wart started turning brown, and (with some barbaric, DIY help from needles and tweezers) slowly fell apart. It's a gradual thing though. The hole left in my foot, as wart chips fell away, ended up being about three millimetres. So yes, plantar warts do indeed grow deep. Another truth of plantar warts is they are tenacious. While my foot was gaping with a three mm hole, the wart still clung to the outer edges and would not give up.

This called for the big guns! I overheard someone at work saying dandelion sap also kills warts. Too bad I pulled a whole bunch of dandelions out last weekend. I managed to sniff out a few down the back of the yard, and dutifully plucked a few leaves and rubbed the sap on the wart.

If you want to see something pretty impressive, rub dandelion sap on a wart. Within minutes it will turn black. So now I have a black hole on the sole of my foot. Mmmmm, nice. But it seems to be working - more of the wart is dropping out at every application. Before I know it, that nasty old wart will be gone. I hope. (And I still think it's better than going to a podiatrist!)