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How Do I Know If I Have a Corn or a Callus?

To find out whether a hard patch of skin is a callus or a wart, your doctor will scrape some skin off the affected area. Warts bleed, but calluses just reveal more dead skin. The distinction is useful because warts are viral and resist treatment. Most calluses are easily correctable. Hereditary calluses can be more difficult to correct.

What Are the Treatments?

Most corns and calluses gradually disappear when the friction or pressure stops. To avoid corns and calluses on the feet, wear correctly fitted shoes and moisturize skin to keep it soft.

Most foot doctors discourage the use of over-the-counter salicylic-acid corn remedies. Applied improperly, corn plasters can kill healthy tissue around the corn. Properly positioned moleskin pads can help relieve pressure on a corn.

A doctor will often shave the top of a callus to reduce the thickness.

Oral antibiotics generally clear up infected corns, but sometimes pus has to be drained through an incision. Over-the-counter antibacterial ointments generally don't work on infected corns, because most staph bacteria are resistant to them.

Hydrocortisone creams may help remove cracked calluses. Apply the cream and cover the area overnight with a plastic bag or a sock. In the morning, rub off as much of the callus as you can with a coarse towel or brush. Using a pumice to rub the dead skin from a callus after showering, then applying urea-based cream, can also be effective. Do not try this with corns! Rubbing will just make them more tender and painful.

You can consider surgery to remove a plantar callus, but it is likely to come back anyway. A better approach is to keep your feet dry and friction free. Wear properly fitted shoes and cotton socks, not wool or synthetic fibers that might irritate the skin. If a podiatrist or orthopedist thinks your corn or callus is caused by abnormal foot placement or hip rotation, orthopedic shoe inserts or surgery to correct foot deformities may help correct the problem.