Look at this weird thing on my foot.

August 12, 2008 3:05 PM

Please take a look at pictures of my feet and tell me what is up with these weird dark callouses, and whether I should go to a dermatologist or podiatrist or somebody else.

For at least 10 years, maybe more like 20, I have had this callous on my left foot. It is darker than it appears in the photo, and there is a knob underneath it, but the knob feels like bone. Now I am getting another one on my right foot. The knob under the right one is much smaller than the knob under the left one. The knobs are hard and do not move if I try to push them.

This is not caused by shoes or any other type of friction. I don't have shoes that rub those spots, and I don't habitually sit with pressure on those spots or do anything else that I can identify that would cause friction there. I don't have spots like this anywhere else on my body.

I have tried various abrasives and callous-removing medications, but these aren't like regular callouses. A callous on your heels is kind of porous and spongy. This is more like just very thick, weird elephant skin.

They have gradually gotten much darker and now are seriously interfering with the cuteness of my shoes. I want them gone.

My questions:

1. What the hell are they?
2. What kind of doctor should I see? Dermatologist? Podiatrist? Or what?

Thanks all!

posted by HotToddy to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

I have one of those on my right foot- my dermatologist said it was probably excema and gave me some Desoximetasone cream, which worked pretty well when I was dilligent about using it. I told him that I had tried exfoliating it, which he told me was the worst thing to do. Now I do my best to keep it moisturized with a thick cream and it seems to not be so bad.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:28 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Excema, as TPS mentions. Or, I'd go extremely mild patches of psoriasis. The "thick, weird elephant skin" description leads me to that.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:28 PM on August 12, 2008

Response by poster: Even though there's no redness (just darkness), skin edema, itching and dryness, crusting, flaking, blistering, cracking, oozing, or bleeding? Just thickened, dark skin?
posted by HotToddy at 4:40 PM on August 12, 2008

Well, seeing as I'm looking at something on my arm that looks remarkably like the thing on your foot, and my dermatologist said "psoriasis" ... kinda, yeah. I could be wrong. ;-)
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:01 PM on August 12, 2008

I had the exact same thing on one of my feet. About six months later the same thing happened on the other. I narrowed it down to the shoes I was wearing. I switched shoes and one went away.

The one that didn't go away was on a foot that I had had a severely sprained ankle on. It stayed there until I had surgery on that ankle to reattach the peroneal tendon. It was related to a ganglion cyst I had on the side of my foot for the same tendon tear.
posted by sanka at 5:24 PM on August 12, 2008

If you moved that patch over to your right ankle, then your patch would've looked exactly like the patch I had for several years. Yeah, no oozing and no itchiness on mine, either. It's almost definitely psoriasis, albeit a very mild version. I say that after having mine diagnosed by two different doctors - one dermatologist and one general practice. They offered me a cream, but I honestly I didn't feel like I needed it. I was also a teensy bit afraid of escalating the situation.

Mine went away after about.... thinking here... 5 years? Thereabouts. It's not reoccured in the 3 years since, either.
posted by fujiko at 9:43 PM on August 12, 2008

Response by poster: Okay, thanks everyone. I never would have guessed psoriasis in a million years. I happen to already have some desoximetasone so I'll hit it with that and if that doesn't take care of it I'll go to a dermatologist.
posted by HotToddy at 9:46 AM on August 13, 2008