blisters

[Adrienne Patton]

Hello all,

This is a subject I have not seen brought up recently
- at least in the last couple of months.

I saw blisters end the Camino of more than one fellow
pilgrim, which surprised me as I initially went
thinking they were just a painful annoyance.

My boots were were of the type of construction that I
had no problems in the initial mountainous section.  I
thought I was out of the woods blister-wise, but after
the first 10 days, as things flattened out, my boots
were not ideal and I started to blister.

I went through many "cures" and preventions that did
not help, only made things worse.  I tried moleskin,
second skin, Compeed...

I just wanted to share the the thing that worked for
me.  It not only worked, but worked quickly and
thoroughly, even with a spot that had become infected.

Cut open the blister - I gave the middle of it a
little snip with the sissors on my pocket knife.
Drain it.  Fill it with Mercurochrome.  Old-fashioned,
but brilliant.  It killed infection and dried the spot
up to a callous practically overnight.

If it is tender, until it hardens, cover with a
bandaid w/ a drop of mercurochrome on the pad.  A bit
of lambswool under the bandaid gives good extra
padding as well for the first day after treating it.

Moleskin or Compeed only work to prevent blisters if
they are applied IMMEDIATELY at the first sign of a
hotspot.  Even then, I usually got to it too late.
The cover-ups do nothing to cure the hotspot, and I
even had blisters form from the hotspots under the
cover-ups.

This time I am going to wear sock liners and use
vaseline on my heels and toe dividers for my little
toes (my worst rubbing spot) in the interest of trying
to prevent any hotspots in the first place, but I am
carrying my same little bottle of mercurochrome that
the angel farmacéutico sold me last time.

Hope this helps someone!
Adrienne

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