Athlete's Foot

Athlete’s foot is a fungal infection. It can lead to intense itching, cracked, blistered or peeling areas of skin together with redness and scaling. It can occur on moist, waterlogged skin especially between the fourth and fifth toes, or on dry, flaky skin around the heels or elsewhere on the foot.

It can be caused by a number of fungal species which one can pick up from anywhere (typically communal areas such as pools, showers and changing rooms) or anywhere where one might walk barefooted. This infection is vary contagious and can be passed on to others especially if one is prone to the infection.

Once the feet have been contaminated, the warm, dark and sweaty environment of feet cramped in shoes or trainers provides the ideal breeding ground for the fungus. However, athlete’s foot also occurs in dry, flaky areas. It’s quite common in summer sandal-wearers. The sun makes your skin dry out, so it loses its natural protective oils; this combined with the constant trauma from sandals makes them more prone to infection.

Walking barefoot around swimming pools and spending your life in trainers make you more likely to suffer from this infection. But obviously, you don’t need to be an athlete to suffer from it.