As I mentioned before, I’ve been dealing with an ugly blister on the inside of my right foot for over two week. I explained in a previous post how I got it and I took a couple weeks easy between tryouts and the start of FM in the hopes that it would heal up.
At first I tried a combination of bandaids, moleskin, and athletic tape. I’m not sure if it’s the way I’m taping my foot that is incorrect, but these different taping methods seem to slip or catch to my sock during practice. As a result the setups end up causing more damage to my blistered foot rather than good. In fact, one such setup with moleskin resulted in a second blister forming and popping next to the first one. Now I have two gross painful popped blisters on my foot about the size of a dime each. They hurt me so badly whenever I do crossovers (which is probably the majority of practice). Not only that, but they hurt when doing fast footwork through pacelines and even just walking around. It’s also causing strain on the outside of my right foot cause often I end up putting my weight on that side of the foot to save myself from blister-related pain.
Saturday was really rough for me and I’m trying desperately to find a good way to protect my foot while skating.
I’ve made a small breakthrough so far.
1) I try to tie my skates as tight as possible without cutting off circulation
2) I put down 4 band-aids down over the blisters – 2 on the actual blisters and 2 running the perpendicular to help keep them in place.
3) I cut both ends off a condom (tip and end)
4) Stretch lubricated side of condom over blistered area like a sock.
5) Pull ankle compression sleeve over foot
This worked better than any previous method. At the very least the amount of new damage to the blisters was minimal.
What I’m planning to try today:
1) Put lots of antibiotic pain-relief cream on the blisters to lubricate them
2) Put one large bandaid over both
3) Put condom over bandaid but only cut off tip (leave this rubber part at end)
4) Put ankle compression sleeve over condom
5) Tape circular makeup pad to exterior of compression sleeve to tape pressure off blistered area.
We will see how this works!
Something I am also in the process of doing is ordering an Ezee Fit bootie. Everyone recommends them to avoid blisters in all manner of sports. They come in two styles, ankle only and full foot. I think the full foot is the most helpful style for my needs but I’m still trying to determine the best size for me to get. My foot size falls between the Small and the Medium. Also, they apparently come in different thicknesses and that is also something I need to consider.
I will do a separate post on Ezee Fits so you can learn from my research into them. Expect that in the next few days.
I’ll also let you know how my blister protection method holds up at practice tonight. Wish me luck!
Eight Wheeled Adventure 