Dry splitting skin on toes

[tim091]

My six year old has this very ugly looking problem on his toes (mostly big toes) where the skin is splitting and weeping. It looks red and inflamed sometimes. Not surprisingly he is in a great deal of pain sometimes.

This has been going on for about 4 months and two trips to the doctor (well, the nurse as you can't actually get to see a doctor at my practice it seems). So far she has prescribed steroid cream, a moisturising cream and recently a different moisturising cream. Nothing is working and I feel so bad for him seeing him hobbling in pain.

Anyone any experience/ideas?

Could it be athlete's foot?

Boots have an OTC dual action canesten cream suitable for children and adults, I'd get some of that and follow the advice for preventing athletes foot and see if it gets any better.

Thanks for the input. My first thought was that it was fungal but the nurse said no. I am minded to give canesten etc, a go as it certainly can't hurt, well, it might :( and I can get it quicker than getting a doctor's appointment!

My children get this frequently. We fix it by:

• soaking their toes in warm salty water regularly
• dry toes thoroughly all over after the soak and after a bath
• removing socks when indoors to get air flowing

Just found a picture of athlete's foot online (a pretty gruesome process looking through those!) and it almost exactly matches my boy's problem. His is more split and weepy but when it is a little better it looks like this.

Canesten ordered from Amazon , arriving tomorrow.

I'll update here with results after a week or so. Thank you so much for reminding me that it might be fungal!