Corns are a frequent ailment of the foot which can be painful and hard to treat. Corns are due to a lot of pressure on an area of the skin. They are part of a natural mechanism that has gone awry. When there is a lot of pressure on the skin, that area of skin will thicken up to protect itself. If the pressure continues over a extended period of time, it becomes so thick that it is painful. This really is the same as the process which occurs when, for instance, cutting up wood. Doing this, you eventually produce a callus on your hand. The same principle happens on the foot with pressure from the surface or pressure on a toe from the shoe. When you quit cutting wood, the thicker skin on the hands subside. The issue in the foot is that you keep putting on footwear and you keep walking, so the pressure continues and the thicker skin forms into a corn and will become painful.

Getting rid of corns is relatively easy and a competent podiatrist can certainly take them out. That's the easy part. The difficult part is preventing them coming back. It's one thing to take them off, however if you don't take away that cause (the greater pressures on the area), then they will just come back eventually. Corns don't have roots that they re-grow from. They come back as the cause remains. Taking away a corn is much like managing the symptom. They are going to come back unless the reason is removed. This is where the ability of a podiatrist is needed to find out the correct cause. A full assessment is necessary of the function, footwear, foot shape and activities to sort out just what it is that produces the higher pressure. When that reason has been determined, then different interventions can be used to reduce that pressure. This might vary from simple footwear advice to foot orthotic to surgical procedures.