Knowing if you have athlete’s foot and being able to prevent it are additional ways to take care of your personal hygiene. Contracting this fungal infection does not mean that you aren’t clean or that you don’t know how to take care of yourself, it just means that you caught something, something that can easily be treated. Knowing the symptoms and how to prevent it are just ways to help keep your feet healthy.

How Can I Prevent it?

There are many ways to help prevent contracting Athlete’s foot. Every day you want to ensure that you are washing your feet, and even between your toes. This might be an area that people forget on a regular basis because it’s just an oversight. But, it shouldn’t be. These should be taken care of like the space between your fingers. You also want to keep your feet dry and comfortable throughout the day. Athlete’s foot thrives in warm moist places, so sweaty socks is the ideal breeding ground. So after you work out, make sure that you change your socks to clean and dry ones.

One of the first tips I ever heard was to wear rubber flip flops when in a public shower or at the public pool, where it may be that there are other people running around in this kind of environment and one of them can have it. You don’t want it, so instead of running freely, take the precautions to cover up your feet and keep them as dry as possible while there. You can also use an antifungal powder on a daily basis in your socks in order to keep any infection at bay. This seems like the easiest way to combat it, if you are going to walk around barefoot that is.

What are the Symptoms?

The symptoms are that of a terrible rash in one of the most uncomfortable places. Some of those symptoms include itching, stinging, and burning between the toes and sometimes on the soles of the feet. This can’t be comfortable so I would suggest getting some sort of treatment for it. Also you can experience blisters on the feet that make you want to tear your skin off by scratching. Dry skin is also an indication. So if you are lathering up with lotion everyday and notice that there seems to be more dry skin, take the time and make an appointment to have it checked out. Unless you are a runner (or you injured yourself) your nails shouldn’t fall off. If you start to see this, you may want to take a chance at getting treatment.

Treatment

Treatment can consist of topical over the counter or prescription medications, as well as oral medications including antibiotics. But no one wants to come to this point, just try and keep your feel comfortable throughout the day and you won’t have to worry about looking for the symptoms. Healthy feet make the whole body feel healthy.