Athelete's Foot

I've had athelete's foot for just over a year now. I made the mistake of allowing my gardener from Guadalaja live on my couch. He seems oblivious to my problem. He said his doctor gave him a shot to get rid of his athelete's foot.

I've tried every product on the market. While they help they never completely rid me of my problem. I finally went to a dermatologist at UCLA and they recommended Clclopirox Olamine Cream USP, 0.77%. It works. And the interesting thing is the manner in which the team of dermatologist's recommended this product. They had full confidence that this would work for me.

What I found is that the most effective way to apply this cream is with my finger because you need to massage the cream into the crevices the athelete's foot fungus builds for itself to hide. You can't know this if you use a Q-tip. You see, I know how powerful antifungal creams are because I once killed all my goldfish using the same sponge I used to bathe my dogs. So I never like to actually touch an antifungal cream. So applying this cream with a Q-tip worked for a while but the athelete's foot seemed to linger until I made a trip to New York and I had no Q-tips. Changing to my left index finger to apply the ointment on the bottom of my right foot I discovered this huge crack in the skin running along the bottom and side of my fourth toe right next to the little toe. It's impossible to see it. You can only feel it.

And the fungus is tenacious. It seems to travel wherever it can. So say you massage the cream into the crevice on the bottom of your toe. Well, a few weeks later when the bottom of your toe heals the fungus might appear on the top of the same toe. It can travel to the other foot. So you have to change your socks with every application and you need to wash your socks in hot water with some detergent. Dry the socks in the dryer.

Using your finger is critical. Your finger can tell you where the crevice is and you can monitor the healing. Without touching the infection you can't know where it is because even with a mirror it is hard to see between your toes and the bottom joints of the toes. It won't hurt to apply the cream on the surrounding areas.