Physical activity and health: Blisters

Hi everyone!


I hope you are doing well. Thank you very much for your support and interest.


I will begin this article by telling you that the good feelings felt during the marathon are maintained. In fact after swimming on Monday, today I started again my cycling workouts without any problem. A good nutrition has been essential to keep these good feelings, in a future article I will tell you a little about the new dietary guidelines that I follow and feelings I had during the process.




Today I will talk a bit about the annoying blisters. While physical activity is directly linked to welfarem, as a result of it there may be some unpleasant symptoms that are best avoided. From my point of view there are many factors that influence our feelings at the time of physical activity, some of them depend directly on us and others not, that is why we must do our part to control those factors we can handle. The less you have factors that may prevent us from enjoying the sport, our experience will be better.


Blisters can be very annoying, in fact its appearance can influence our performance and sensations entirely, and can make even a quiet walk in a pretty hard experience.


Blisters are bumps on the skin containing fluid, which is usually clear but sometimes takes on a bloody color.


They appear as a result of friction from shoes or clothing that repeatedly rub the skin resulting in friction burns. The outer and inner layers of the skin is separated and the space between them is full of lymph. This is a common problem particularly when the premiere athletes sneakers or hiking boots. They also often occur in people who are exceptionally long walking tours (marathon, trekking) due to friction maintained over time and excess moisture (sweat) and heat in the area.


The good news is that the blisters do not have to appear. This is why it is important to focus on prevention. Within this point there are simple tips that can help you to avoid them


1 .- It is important that shoes fit us well. It is important to make the move the shoe does not rub the skin occurs. Shoes too tight or too loose are more likely to cause problems.


2 .- To protect the foot (with bandages or patches) in areas where friction is present. This can prevent shoes rubbing bare skin at the same time to avoid a sensitive area and continue damaged.


3 .- Keep feet as dry as possible. There are many types of socks created for this purpose. The use of talcum powder may be useful.


4 .- The application of heat to the footwear, depending on the material it is built, you can change its shape and cause the problem.


5 .- Especially if trekking, we must pay special attention to the seams that might have our shoes inside. These are commonly causing blisters.


The first sign of friction is the reddening of the skin. After each workout, I recommend you take a few minutes to check your feet, this will help them detect potential blisters before they appear. If they already have appeared, it is important to cover with a patch. We must also worry about keeping our feet dry, changing our socks can help. Another measure, but only work on a short therm, is to add vaseline on the areas that we consider the blisters appear.


As measures of treatment, we can say that if the blister has not exploited it may be necessary to make a small hole with a pin on the edge of the blister, especially if it is in an area of support, such as sole. An easy way to sterilize the pin is passing through the flame of a lighter. If we continue the march the next day, we can move on wire from the pin so that once it crosses the blister is in order to absorb the liquid. It is important that the hole is made with a pin because we try to leave as much skin as possible covering the wound. This will act as an important protective layer for the underlying skin to help prevent infection. As a general rule, never cut the dry skin that is over the blister.


After the blister drained, we must clean the area with a damp washcloth or a liquid disinfectant (povidone-iodine, alcohol, etc..) And then we cover it with a patch. On this last point, it may be helpful to add the patch a bit of tape. Do not remove the patch until it falls by itself.


In conclusion I must say that we should never drain a blood filled blister!


I hope this information will have been useful. I leave you a giant hug, take care a lot and enjoy playing sports.


At 290 days the big challenge,




Schobi