How can a weekly exfoliating foot facial help prevent foot pain?

A weekly exfoliating foot facial can help prevent foot pain by reducing swelling, muscle spasms, and soreness, and by moisturizing the skin and nails. Podiatrist Suzanne Levine, DPM, explains the benefits and shares her exfoliant recipe.

Transcript

00:00

I developed the foot facial because we spend so much money and time on our face, I decided it was time to pamper the foot.

00:07

[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:15

The foot facial-- what it does is it exfoliates all the dead cells. And you can actually put some ingredients together yourself

00:22

without spending a lot of money on products. There's kosher salt that you mix up, Epsom salts, and brown sugar, lemon juice.

00:31

You can even put a little vanilla in it as well. Put a little olive oil in it. Mix it around. And you can use it on the foot two or three times a week.

00:39

And put the greatest amount of pressure starting with the tips of your toe toward the heel. So you're reducing some of the swelling,

00:46

and you're actually cutting down on the muscle spasms, the pain, the soreness that you have on your feet. You moisturize also the nails, and you moisturize the skin.

00:56

Because what happens is if you have calluses and they get very thick, your gait is abnormal. The callus material is not normal cells.

01:05

They're actually dead cells. And so you can develop swelling around and biomechanical problems that will affect your knee, the hip, the back, even

01:15

your shoulders. So you definitely want to cut down on all that hard callus skin. And that's what the foot facial does.

01:21

The olive oil is an excellent moisturizer, probably better than some of the very expensive moisturizers

01:27

that we see on the market. Just apply that, try to do that once a day. And the lemon juice further serves as an exfoliant.

01:35

It's like a peel, similar to the glycolic peels that you use on your face. So remember to pamper your feet and do

01:43

a-- perform a foot facial on yourself two to three times a week. [AUDIO LOGO]