Corns are a frequent disorder of the foot that can be painful and hard to treat. They are due to an excessive amount of pressure on an area of the skin. They are part of a normal mechanism that has gone awry. Anytime there is excessive pressure on the skin, that region of skin will thicken up to protect itself. When the pressure goes on over a long time, it becomes so thick that it is painful. This can be the same as the mechanism which happens when, by way of example, cutting up wood. Doing this, you ultimately develop a callus on your hand. A similar thing happens on the foot with pressure from the surface or pressure on a toe from footwear. When you quit cutting wood, the thicker skin on the palms subside. The problem 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 becomes painful.

Getting rid of corns is comparatively easy and a competent podiatrist can certainly take them out. That's the simple part. The hard bit is stopping them coming back. It is one thing to take them off, however unless you remove that cause (the greater pressures on the skin), chances are they will just come back eventually. Corns do not have roots that they can re-grow from. They keep coming back as the cause is still there. Taking away a corn is a lot like managing the symptom. They will come back unless the reason is taken away. This is where the skill of a podiatrist is necessary to find out the proper cause. A complete assessment is needed of the function, shoes, foot shape and activities to work out just what it is that causes the higher pressure. When that cause has been determined, then different treatments can be used to reduce that pressure. This might range from simple shoe advice to foot orthotic to surgical procedures.