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When You Develop a Foot Allergy, It Has to be Your Shoes |
 The idea that your feet could develop allergies seems a bit silly. After all, if there was one part of the human anatomy that seems to be too tough to get to, it is your feet. But feet are part of your living body too and they can react to allergens just as much as your nose, your eyes or your stomach can.
The feet really only come in direct contact with a limited number of things. Now if you go barefoot outside and you feel a rash come up after stepping in poison ivy or being stung by a bee on the foot, then that is just a continuation of an already existing allergic condition that you probably already knew about. But when your feet become itchy and develop a foot allergy rash all of a sudden, the odds overwhelming point to your socks or your shoes.
A foot allergy is probably a skin allergy. But because your foot is exposed to whatever substances and chemicals went into the making of your socks and shoes, you can develop a foot allergy that suddenly comes along seemingly "out of the blue". In truth, the allergy may have already been there but something changed. Maybe you bought a new pair or shoes or started using a new kind of detergent to wash your socks and the chemicals used in those soaps are causing the foot allergy reaction.
To do the detective work on a foot allergy, start with thinking about what has changed when it comes to your footwear. If you have new shoes, it could be vinyl or whatever went into making those shoes. By finding out the make up of your shoes, that could be a big clue. Also, keep in mind that many shoe makers buy their shoes from manufacturing plants that operate overseas. In that case, you may have no idea what kinds of chemicals went into the processing and curing of the material that went into making your shoes. But it is quite likely that one of those chemicals is setting off your foot allergy.
To find out if you can identify something in your socks, how they are washed or in your shoes that is causing your foot allergy, change your habits. You might get some new cotton socks and wear them exclusively for a week or two. You can rinse them out in cold water in the sink to avoid the use of any detergents.
Once you have seen the foot allergy go down, you can then begin to sample the shoes or socks that were in active use when the foot allergy was bothering you. When the foot allergy returns, you have your culprit. That may mean a pair of shoes gets tossed out or you change laundry soup. But that is a whole better than constantly scratching your feet because of that irritating foot allergy problem.
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