What Should You Do When A Foreign Object Gets Inside Your Foot?

In a freak accident, a news anchor in Lexington Kentucky had a 3-4 inch piece of wood embedded in his foot that required surgery to remove it and all of its shards. He was rushing through his home that has old wooden floors and ended up with a large piece of wood in his foot. A podiatrist in the area had to do surgery to remove the piece of wood and he has had to have bandages over the area and wear a boot for about the past week.

It is not uncommon to get foreign objects stuck in our feet because the feet come into contact with our surrounding area every day. Most people wear shoes when they go to work or around town, but many of us will go barefoot in our home. This leaves our feet open to whatever is lying around in the house. This can result in stubbing your toe on the furniture, stepping on the children’s toys, or ending up with a nail, fork, or other foreign object either breaking through their skin or ending up lodged in their foot.

Your feet contain many bones, muscles, arteries, veins and nerves. This means that when you get something in your foot, it may be difficult to get it out. This often depends upon how deep the object has gotten into your foot, the angle and the type of material. Something like a needle will be easier than wood because there is not the fear that it may splinter. Regardless, it will be important that once the object is removed, the area will need to be thoroughly cleaned and steps need to be taken to help your foot heal. In many cases, this included some type of antibiotic ointment such as Wound Be Gone, bandaging and padding to reduce the pressure applied to the area. This will allow your wound to heal over and protect your foot from bacteria and germs entering through your foot into your body. Depending on the object and last time you had a tetanus booster; you may need a booster to help prevent the possibility of tetanus.

The most important take home message is that you should be wearing shoes around your home. If you don’t want to wear your sneakers or dress shoes that is fine, but wearing something like house slippers or Crocs is far better than nothing. A pair of shoes serves as your defense from the outside world. Although our skin protects us from many outside things such as bacteria, it is not impermeable to everything. So, it is important that we protect them. However, should you end up with something in your foot, it is important that you visit your local podiatrist who can use imaging techniques to make sure that the object has been completely removed and prevent further infection in the future. If you live in the North Andover, Lowell, Methuen, Bradford,Newburyport or Chelmsford, Massachusetts and find yourself dealing with this kind of situation, our office staff would be more than happy to schedule you immediately and help you get back on your feet.