Hiking – Page 4 – Andrea Arthur Owan

Basic Blister Care Part 3: Treating a Blister

If you’re the type of athlete that uses shoes for your sport—like tennis, running, hiking, or walking—you’re bound to end up with blisters. New shoes or too tight or loose shoes are often culprits, but there are a variety of factors that play into whether or not you’re more-or less likely to end up hobbling through your event with blisters or curtailing your workout.

I wasn’t a shoe-wearing athlete, but I had plenty of blisters on my hands from heat and shear forces generated from swinging bars day after day after day. Yes, our hands got hot just like a runner’s feet. I had to learn how to take care of them, and managing them meant attending to my hands on a daily basis.

When I became an athletic trainer, I cared for other people’s feet (and hands) and their blisters. Humbling thing, taking care of other people’s feet. And having someone take care of yours. Feet aren’t always the prettiest body parts, but they tend to bear the brunt of athletic activity.

How to Treat a Blister

Look online or in a book for guidelines on blister care, and you’re liable to find a host of suggestions. While the materials available to pad and treat blisters has changed somewhat and improved a little, the goals for blister treatment are still the same.

Goals—

Decide whether or not the blister is causing pain and needs to be broken or just padded with protective padding.
Always work with the goal in mind to NOT make the blister bigger, worse or allow infection to infiltrate it.
Treat it in a way that promotes the fastest healing.
Figure out what caused the blister in the first place and work to avoid further irritation or future blistering.

Immediate care for the basic blister—

There was a general routine we followed when taking care of foot blisters, which often occurred on the back of the heal.

We would assess whether or not we could let the fluid stay in the blister and simply use padding material and tape to create a donut hole around the blister and tape the donut hole (usually of moleskin with sticky backing or a thicker material that was built up just a little higher than the blister).

The problem with this procedure is that if you make the donut hole too large, larger then the blister, you will usually end up with a larger blister! So beware when trying this method.

If the blister was simply too large or too painful for basic padding, then we’d do the following—

Using an alcohol wipe or betadine pad, we’d wipe the blister and surrounding area in order to disinfect it.
Then, using a small scalpel or curved scissors, we made a tiny slice (about the size of a cotton swab) along one edge of the blister, as close to the perimeter of the blister as possible.
Using a gauze pad or sterile swab, we would gently push the fluid out of the blister through the hole. If the blister was on the heal, the hole would be toward the foot. We would continue this process until the blister was emptied and just the blister “pocket” remained.
Sometimes we would then soak another sterile swab with hydrogen peroxide and clean the open hole edge to kill any remaining bacteria that might sneak into the pocket.
Following this, we’d smear zinc oxide onto the swab and pack the blister pocket with the zinc. The zinc has drying properties that absorb any excess fluid and keeps the new skin dry and aids healing.
Then donut hole padding would be designed to fit over the lanced and drained blister and taped on so the athlete could return to activity.
The process usually allowed the blister to heal quickly, the outer dead skin to dry rapidly so it could be cut off.
The blister was care for with antiseptic, zinc and padding until it was completely healed.
We did NOT cut the outer skin off immediately as this skin acts as a protective covering for the new skin forming underneath.
Always make sure the skin is dry before treating it. We usually had the athlete come to us after they had their post-workout shower, or prior to putting on their socks and shoes for practice. If the skin around the blister was dirty, we’d clean it properly prior to treating and padding.

Alternative care—

If you don’t use a scalpel and just use a sterilized needle to poke a hole in the blister, which often occurs is a re-sealing of the outer skin and a re-filling of the fluid. Hence, another puffed up blister. If you don’t have a scalpel and want to use a needle, make sure it is properly sterilized and you poke several holes in the top and bottom of the blister and then gently drain toward one direction.

But always make sure you keep the wound (because a blister is a wound) clean, disinfected and properly covered.

Fancy padding and materials—

When Spenco’s Second Skin came along we thought we’d died and gone to athletic trainer heaven! Just cut out the desired size for the blister (we got the stuff in rolls and sheets), lay it gently over the hot spot or blister, tape it on, and leave it there for several days, even through the shower, if the taping didn’t come off.

Now any searching in your neighborhood pharmacy yields a plethora of blister care material, like Spenco, Dr. Scholl, pharmacy brand name material and others. Little donut hole pads for toes and bigger pads for heals and balls of the feet can be purchased.

Keep it clean, Clean, CLEAN!!

Whatever treatment you opt for, you must make sure you keep the blister clean. If you’re a runner, hiker, or walk, it’s easy to get dirt or grime in the wound. Make sure it’s properly bandaged and always tended to following your exercise.

And I wouldn’t recommend washing your blister with regular hand soap that’s been sitting on your bathroom basin. You would be stunned to find out how many germs congregate and thrive on that soap!

What about blood blisters?

Personally, I would always opt for draining a blood blister. They’re painful. Blood is an irritant, and just draining the blister of that pressure and irritation goes a long way toward regaining some comfort.

But you always need to be on the lookout for an infection with this type of blister, so pay extra careful attention to its healing. Look for signs of pus, discolored fluid, redness and heat around the wound.

What about for blisters that really don’t need to be drained?

For smaller, or tiny blisters that don’t need to be drained, it wasn’t uncommon for us to just tape them down with adhesive tape, directly over the blister. This obviously pulls the skin off when you pull the tape off, but I often us kinesiotape directly over my small toe blisters. The tape stays on several days through showers and moisture and provides a protective, sticky coating.

And keeping it clean is one of the reasons I don’t like plain old Band-Aids. They don’t seal well around the blister and allow dirt and grime to enter the area. And because they don’t seal, they can end up rubbing on the blister, which further irritates it.

One product I love is medical-grade Manuka honey pads. They also provide a great covering that stays on in moisture, protects the wound with padding and promotes healing. But be careful. If you’re allergic to bees or any bee product, you shouldn’t use them.

What about blood blisters under toenails?

Blisters under toenails are especially painful. They need to be drilled and drained. A special tool (or VERY clean nail) is required for this, so don’t head out to your tool chest to get just any old sharp implement.

But what about how to avoid getting these pesky irritants in the first place?

That’s what we’re going to cover NEXT WEEK—steps you can take to avoid having to deal with blisters, so many of them, or such severe ones.

Until then, make sure you have a blister care kit available at home, and whenever you go out walking, hiking or running. You never know when you’re going to have to get off the trail, peel off those socks and shoes and treat a hot spot. If you don’t do it then, prepare to suffer longer than you should have!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Andrea A Owan

Blister Basics Part 2

One of the first shocking things I learned as a beginning gymnast was that:

I was going to get a lot of blisters on my hands;
They were going to HURT; and
I needed to learn how to take care of them so they wouldn’t be a problem—for my health or my gymnastics participation.

At the beginning—

My eight-year-old hands were tender, unused to the friction and shear forces I was going to expect them to handle for the next fourteen years of my life. Like it or not, they would come with my sport.

So after the first two or three episodes of having areas on the palms of my hands heat up, get fiery red, hot and swollen, before having the skin peeled off, I had to learn to care for my hands.

Coach would laugh when we told him we “had a rip.” As an ex-military guy, it was all in line with toughening up, and he thought it was funny. “Just chalk up and get back up on those bars!” A palm-full of thick calluses was to be my fate, and the fate of every other gymnast I knew.

That was back in the days when female gymnasts didn’t wear the grips they do now. Guys did; girls suffered. They were cumbersome and difficult to use on our oval-shaped bars; and they were also difficult to use if you had stubby fingers like I do—not enough finger sticking out beyond the grips to grad hold. And they didn’t really make them in girls’ sizes. Surprise.

What is a blister, really?

And what causes it?

I learned more than I wanted to know about the physics of blisters. I learned a lot more when I studied and practiced athletic training. Here are some blister-forming facts:

Blisters can be caused by friction, when a tissue encounters friction when it’s rubbed over or against another surface. Like the up-down motion of your heel against the back of your shoe when you’re wearing thin socks, or no socks at all. Rub, rub, rub. Blister.
Deeper blisters are most often the result of shear forces, when the layers of skin are rubbing back and forth on one another.
When the epidermal layer of skin is irritated or damaged by these forces, fluid collects between the epidermis—top layer—and the deeper dermal layer. The fluid usually comes from plasma escaped from the surrounding damaged cells.
The fluid seeps into the pocket and puffs up the top layer of skin.
The fluid is there to bathe the damaged skin layers, protect it, and start the healing process.
Shear force blisters can cause tremendous pain because it causes damage or irritation to surrounding nerves.
Blisters can form under calluses. (These types of blisters can be hard to manage and require careful treatment.)
Having thickened calluses that aren’t managed (like carefully shaving down or kept soft or pliable) can increase your risk of deep blisters, and a lot of pain!
Sweat and warmth—as what happens when your sweaty feet are stuck in a shoe—increase blister formation likelihood.
Blisters can be filled with a variety of fluids, like serum, plasma, blood or pus (indicating a probable infection).
The crushing or pinching of tissue (like I experienced a lot of as a gymnast, when I was swinging around on the bars) can rupture a blood vessel in the dermal layer, which in turn allows blood to seep into the pocket between the layers. There were times we’d leave blood streaks (or skin sections) on the bars when we had a rip.
The body quickly springs into action when a blister forms.

At six hours post-blister formation, the blister fluid is usually re-absorbed, and the top layer flattens back down onto the underlying tissue and begins to die. But it serves as a protective cover for the wound beneath it.
At 24 hours, new skin layers are already beginning to form.
And at 48 hours, new “soft” baby skin can be seen developing over the wound. If the blister is not properly cared for, this new skin can crack and another wound (now exposed) can appear. Then you can have a blister forming underneath a blister, a very painful condition.

Blisters improperly cared for can lead to infections and slowed healing.
How hydrated you are affects blister formation, and how well it heals. Really.

*On the photo above, you can see the cracked, peeling skin of the blisters that ran along my middle toe. I didn’t do anything to treat those. The body took care of everything, and the old skin is now peeling away. While noticeable, these blisters (which occur in the same spot on both my feet), were not noticeable enough to slow me down, or warrant padding or bandaging. But if I were to go on longer hikes during the day, day-after-day, I would make sure I taped the toes to reduce friction and shear forces. Clearly I am prone to irritation in these areas, probably due to the biomechanics of how my foot hits the ground and pushes off.

NEXT WEEK: Learn how to provide immediate care for your blisters.

Until then, keep those feet dry and as cool as possible! (I know. Difficult on a long walk or hike.) And don’t peel the skin from those blisters!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Andrea A Owan

Blister Basics Part I

Ever have a big, fiery red puffed up blister on your foot, toe or heal? Not a lot of fun, is it? It can make shoe wearing and even walking miserable or nearly impossible. And they can take SOOO L-O-N-G to heal.

I saw and treated a lot of blisters in my day as an athletic trainer. There was a special process we’d go through to lance, drain, pack and pad them, so the athlete could bite their lip and return to practice or competition. And I still find myself treating my own today.

But a lot of those blisters could have been avoided. Some of the blister-causing culprits I saw were:

Improperly fitted shoes.
Shoes that had gotten wet and dirty and, consequently, dry and stiff. No pliability left.
Too old or too worn out shoes. (Sometimes athletes just couldn’t relinquish them.)
Wrong shoes for the activity. Tennis for running. Running shoes for tennis.
Old, dirty socks worn, worn and re-worn until they could stand up on their own.
Worn out socks with pills, errant threads floating around, threadbare areas and holes.
Shoes stiffened from sweat.
Socks that didn’t fit.
Wrong sock for the wrong activity.
Dirty feet and toes.
Improperly trimmed toenails.
Untrimmed toenails.
Feet not properly dried following a shower or sweat-inducing exercise.
Grit and dirt in the shoes or socks.
Old insoles that needed to be replaced.
Calluses that hadn’t been cared for properly or filed down sufficiently.
Doing too much too soon on soft, unconditioned feet.

Did I say doing too much too soon on unconditioned feet?

That last one is probably one of the biggest culprits. Feet need to be conditioned to do the work you expect of them. You need to work up to the mileage and pace you want to maintain.

Blister Care—

Some things have changed about blister care since I was treating them daily. Some of the super neat treatment options were arriving on the scene while I was still in school learning how to be an injury-preventing, injury-identifying, and recovering-from-injury athletic trainer. Our understanding of how blisters are caused has evolved, and that understand has allowed developments in better treatment.

But there is no one-type-of-prevention-fits-all to follow.

You can conquer and reduce the number and severity of blisters if you know the basics.

NEXT WEEKI’ll take you through the physics of blister formation. Then we’ll talk about how to reduce their occurrence and treat them if they do arise. Literally.

Until then,

look through your closets and drawers for socks that have seen better days and need to be retired to the laundry room as rags. (Hint: look for thread bare areas, broken down weave, holes, runs, pilling, and stretched out elastic. Thank the socks for their faithful service, and then use them for something else.)

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Craig Whitehead

Walking, Running and Hiking Socks—It Pays to Know What’s Available

Been to your neighborhood outdoor recreation store lately to buy socks? The array of choices and purposes can be mind-boggling! What happened to just having a nice, cottonish sock with adequate heal and toe padding, and maybe a gradation of thickness, depending on what kind of weather you’d be hiking or exercising in?

Unfortunately (because you need to do your homework, know your sock choices and try them out), and fortunately (technology advancement in materials means they now make socks for every kind of feet, environment and need), you have a variety to choose from and try. Because your feet, comfort, blister prevention and exercise enjoyment depend on it, it pays to know your options. So let’s do some general studying. You’ll be doing yourself a monumental favor!

Going past the basics to specialty socks—

Walking, Running and Hiking:

In this category, you’ll find socks made for

Moisture Wicking— (and keeping the feet as dry as possible). Especially good for you super-sweaters. Offered in road and trail versions, different heights, and a variety of material blends.

Hiking—high calf or crew, hikers will choose wool or wool blend in different thicknesses, depending on the weather. But make sure if you wear wool you frequently check the sock for fabric clumping. That can cause blister problems.

Sock Liners—Runners, walkers and hikers sometimes wear liners between their woolies and the shoe in order to wick moisture away from the foot and reduce friction (or shear), which reduces your chances of being disabled by blisters from too-moist feet.

When I discovered these babies, I thought I’d nearly died and gone to heaven! They made hiking SOOOO much more enjoyable. One of the things that had turned me off to hiking (aside from the leaden boots that used to be standard fare), was the bulky feeling of the socks inside the boots. (Remember, I spent most of my years as a bare-foot or ped-footed gymnast, so anything heavy on my feet made me miserable.) These liners gave a silky feel to my feet and legs and made getting those SmartWool hiking socks on over my feet a breeze. They also reduced hot spots and blisters, and wick moisture from your feet, so I was immediately sold. I wear them under my ski socks, too.

I swear by sock liners when I’m wearing hiking boots! If you’re on a long trek, with an overnight stay, it cuts down on the amount of outer sock washing. Washing the thin liners is quick and easy, and if it’s during the summer, they usually dry overnight, or you just clothespin them to your backpack the following day to hang dry as you’re walking. Always carry at least two pair of liners with you for this. They’re light and compact enough to stuff in your backpack without taking up too much room. (Of course, discount the hang-to-dry part if you’re knee-deep in snow during the winter.)

Double-layered Socks—These are now my go-to socks! I love, Love, LOVE theme! A REI associate recommended them to me while I was shopping at their Seattle flagship store. They’re ankle height and are SOOOO comfy! I’m planning to wear these on our pilgrimage, even in cold weather. I’ll have lightweight, ankle gaters on to keep the pebbles and dirt out, and if it’s really cold, I’ve got lightweight silk long underwear. And maybe I’ll wear an additional pair of sock liners underneath the double-layered models.

Is that overkill? Not for me, personally. Triple layers help some people tremendously. For some, they might not like that additional layer. You need to find out what works for you.

Compression Socks—I’ve heard both pros and cons on these. One runner wrote a long article disparaging these socks and giving his reasons why. Research hasn’t drawn a positive conclusion on them, but as some experts state (and I would agree), if they make you feel better and don’t cause any harm, go for it! (One of my doctors personally swears by wearing them on long plane flights so combat circulatory problems.)

Some of the stated benefits include: improved circulation, reduced swelling, increased comfort, improved maximal oxygen consumption, quicker recovery, and reduced leg fatigue. Some people wear them strictly to enhance recovery, so their feet will be perky enough to put in mileage day-after-day.

But beware of wearing compression socks in the heat! You may set yourself up for heat rash (I’m prone to this, with horrible red splotches popping up at the top of the sock and about two inches beyond that.) You don’t want to stress your circulatory system!

Other options—

No socks—Then there’s the sockless aficionados. This used to be more of a problem when athletic shoe insoles couldn’t be removed. Then your foot sweat seeped into the insole/liner, which caused the insole to stiffen and lose its support capabilities. But some of my athletes at Indiana University (many whom were national champions, Olympic Trial competitors, or went on to be Olympians) loved the no sock feel. With all of the nerve endings in the feet and toes, it helped them feel the ground more. Their shoes were incredibly stinky, though! And stiff from all of the sweat salts.

Know how to put on a sock?

Yes, there is a right and wrong way to put a sock on your foot.

First, turn them inside out to make sure they’re pebble or dirt or pile-free. Then turn them back.
Then, roll the ankle portion down to the toe area as far as possible.
Slide the sock over your toes and carefully work the sock up your foot, ankle and calf.
Make sure any seams are not directly over your big or little toes, to rub on these appendages when the shoe is on and cause problems.
Smooth and straighten the sock out.
Put your shoe on and make sure the socks are situated on your foot in a comfortable manner.
Lace up your shoes and have at it!
Take the time to remove your shoe and sock during your walk or hike, if you must. It’s common to get little pebbles, dirt and dust in your shoes and socks that create friction problems. Clean them out, and start again. Your feet might enjoy the fresh air! J

Wearing gaters helps alleviate the dirt and pebble problems.

WARNING!If you do elect to wear layer upon layer of socks, go up at least a ½ size in your hiking boots or shoes. You don’t want that puffy, padded sock to get squashed (so long cushy padding!) or make the fit so tight your foot is screaming in pain! And make sure you try the socks on with the pair of shoes/boots you want to buy, while you’re in the store!

Advice you might want to consider, or not—

A friend of mine who walks the Camino de Santiago nearly every year suggests buying a boot or shoe a size to a size-and-a-half larger, to allow for your feet to swell on lengthy mileage days. But I wouldn’t do that. With shoes that much larger, your feet will slop around in them at the beginning of your walk/hike, and you’ll increase the friction and shear forces assaulting your feet. The result? Instability and increased hot spots and blister formation. He also tells people they will definitely get blisters, which might be because of this shoe way-too-large shoe practice.

But your feet will swell, and there is a remedy for that.

Train, train, and train some more!

There’s no substitute for putting in the mileage ahead of time during training, so your feet will widen and toughen up and be prepared for the mileage you’ll be walking. Or you can consider buying larger shoes as you progress on your hike. Evidently some thru-hikers have been known to do this when walking the Appalachian and Pacific Coast Trails—ordering larger sizes to be shipped ahead to a pickup location or actually leaving the trail to shop at suppliers stationed along the route.

Wanna avoid wet feet in rain and are too cheap to buy moisture-wicking socks or expensive rain gear?

As athletic trainers at the University of Wisconsin, (where I was an undergraduate student trainer), it wasn’t unusual for us to be subjected to standing water on the non-draining AstroTurf during spring football training. That was something our cute little white nylon Nike tennies with the red swish couldn’t handle. Porous, they were!

So, rather than tough it out and risk getting sick from standing around for hours (in the cold, wet weather, under the stadium lights) in soaked feet, another female athletic trainer and I started the following uniform craze:

Put sock on.
Put sock-covered foot into a plastic sandwich baggy.
Liberally wrap the top of the baggy (around the ankle) with white athletic tape to create a halfway decent seal and secure the baggy to the sock.
Put baggy and sock-covered foot into your stylish red-swish Nike.
Walk out to the football field and pad up-and-down the sidelines while the team practices.
Squish back to the training room after three hours, remove the shoe, tape, baggy and sock and put on dry shoes.
Clean the dirt and mud from your Nikes, air them out overnight, and do it all again the following day.
Voila! Dry feet (that didn’t freeze or look like prunes)!

Ultramarathon runner John Vonhof says you can do this with recycled bread bags. Haven’t tried that one myself, but it might be worth it to carry a couple of recycled bags along on my pilgrimage. In case I encounter a deluge!

NEXT WEEK: Preventing and treating foot blisters.

Until then, have fun trying new socks, and enjoying your walk and hike more!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Andrea A Owan

Knowing Your Socks—Materials Matter

Ever spend much time considering the socks you wear, especially the ones you put on for exercise walking, running or hiking? If not, you should. They’re critical to your foot health and exercise enjoyment. And the all-important blister prevention.

4 Basic Functions of Socks—

Socks do have some important functions, besides just keeping your feet warm and comfy, and maybe adding extra padding. The functions are:

Protection

Warmth

Cushioning

Absorbing or wicking moisture from the feet

While you may head to the ubiquitous white, six-pack tube socks for every need, those might not be the best choice for your feet or your activity. A shapeless cotton sock may be more harmful than helpful.

There’s much to consider when selecting a sock, something I’m really just beginning to appreciate.

My experience—

Growing up in Hawaii, socks were not a go-to wardrobe item. At least not often. Open-toed shoes and slippers were clothing staples, and Keds for physical education classes were the norm, which were often worn sans socks. And as a gymnast, bare feet or little white Peds anchored on the feet and ankles by elastic were the norm. I spent hours stitching quarter-inch elastic in crisscross fashion on my peds; and when they got holes in the balls of the feet, I’d use those as top layers to two or three (or more) bottom layers. Even back then, I wanted as much padding as I could get on my feet. Having all that cushion also helped when I ground my socks in resin to keep my feet well-anchored to the balance beam.

But what’s available now is light years away from what you could find on the shelves several decades ago.

Sock materials and construction—

Cotton. Silk. Spandex. Nylon. Wool. Blends. A ton of choices. What works for someone else may not work for you. What works for one type of activity and shoe may not work for others.

Dense weaves provide more cushion and often more warmth, which may not be ideal if you’re out running or hiking in hot temperatures. Double layers of socks (as I used to wear as a gymnast) provide cushion and the added benefit of reducing friction, critical to longer days of walking or hiking. (Can anyway say blister prevention?!)

Different benefits from different materials—

Let’s look at the benefits and drawbacks of each type of material, so you can get an idea what you might want or need.

Cotton—While these might be your first and cheapest selection, it is probably best to avoid them. Cotton socks, especially 100% cotton, provide no moisture wicking, so when you sweat, your feet are more likely to get wet, possibly cold, and blistered.

Cotton blends—Anything containing cotton plus spandex, rayon, acrylic, or nylon provides some stretch, better conforming to the foot, and some advantages over the 100% cotton models.

Silk—Once a man and woman’s staple, and primary choice, silk socks are now most often used as liners. I have a pair of silk liners I LOVE! I wear them between my wool hiking socks and boots. They reduce friction and have the added benefit of allowing me to slide my thick hiking socks on without much effort. I also wear them between my ski socks and ski boots. Very comfy! I have to replace them, though; I’ve worn them so much they have runs in them. Can’t bring myself to toss them out!

Wool—The advantages of wool are that it usually provides more cushioning, definitely provides more warmth, and wicks moisture away from your sweaty foot. But it’s also a comfortable sock to wear in the heat.

Wool blends—Again, comfortable in temperature extremes. They can also be soft and long lasting.

Fleece socks—Fleece is soft and warm and dries faster than wool. Fleece socks can be baggy, though. I like to wear fleece as ankle warmers—they roll down around the ankle and keep me warm.

Synthetic blends—The majority of synthetic sock materials are blended with cotton, nylon, spandex, or acrylic. They can offer protection against a wide range of problems, such as moisture-driven blisters, friction hot spots, and droopy socks that just don’t want to stay up. Many are moisture wicking, which is great for reducing blisters. Some have good insulation properties to keep you warm (such as ski socks). You can find them in single or double layer (now my favorite type of sock to wear).

Check your drawers—

Pull out all of your socks. What kind of blend do you have the most pairs of? Can you remember why you bought the socks? (They were cute and stylish? On sale? Cheap?)

Ask yourself what kind of activities you do on a regular basis. What kinds of needs you, and your feet, have for socks. What your budget is. (Try not to skimp in the sock department.)

Go window shopping—

Go to your department store and look around to see what they carry. Inspect the package to see what the material content is.

Head to your local outdoor activity or shoe store, particularly the stores specializing in walking or running, to see what they carry. Get with the professional staff at these stores to see what they recommend, what they wear when they’re out for a day hike.

Change your shopping approach—

It may be time for you to start being a little more need-based than utilitarian in your approach to buying and wearing socks!

NEXT WEEK: We’ll look at the different kinds of socks available for exercise.

Until then,

take care of your feet!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).