How a Toe Cap helped me with long walks

My toes were normal as I was growing up. May be with wearing shoes for many years or as the body changes over a period of time, my 4^th toes on both the feet have developed little complication. With normal walking, and day to day activities they do not create any issue.

But when I venture out on long walks, the toe fingers tend to swell a bit, and that’s when the problem start to happen. The skin at the head of 4^th toe finger tends to go under middle toe and the rubbing start happening. If I continue my walk then the skin starts burning and I can no longer walk.

Then I started using band aids, so, hopefully it wouldn’t make the skin go under the middle toe, but that didn’t help much (still better than having no band aid at all).

During vacations, it became very painful to have long walks as the feet used swell a bit due to walking for long time, and on top of it, the moment I realize the 4^th toe is going to have problem, that would be the end of the activities for the day, then I have to take off shoes and switch in to sandals. But still as the burning on toe skin has already started, it would be a painful evening. It used to take 2, 3 days for that to heal and come back to normal.

Was always wondering if there is anything that would protect this toe from going under the middle toe, and found these silicone toe caps recently. Thought let me give it a try, and bought this pair. When they came in, saw that they are little longer than my toe finger, so to give it a try, I cut one into half and used those 2 pieces on both the toes – 1 covered and 1 open. Looks funny, but when they are in the shoe, it didn’t matter. They worked, didn’t have any issue after long walks anymore. The fingers get sweaty a bit, need to dry the toe caps after use, generally I leave them open in the air, and they are ready for use next time.