Dry, cracked skin looks bad and feels worse. Cold, dry air exacerbates the problem - dry, flaky skin appears on the heels, elbows, fingers or toes. This dry skin can become cracked - even severely cracked when "fissures" develop. The good news: new treatments are now healing and softening cracked skin, safely and naturally.
What Causes Cracked Skin?
Anyone can develop hardened, cracked skin, especially in the winter. Diabetics often have severely cracked skin. It is estimated that 17 million Americans have either type 1 or type 2 diabetes, and almost 6 million people have the disease but have not been diagnosed.
Nobody knows exactly why diabetics are prone to skin cracks, but the problem appears to involve the nervous system. Nerves in the legs and feet do not get the message to keep the skin soft and moist. Once the skin dries out and cracks appear, high blood glucose levels allow bacteria to thrive, making the problem worse.
However, non-diabetics suffer from dry, cracked skin, too. Other factors that can be involved include:
- Prolonged standing, especially on hard floors.
- Obesity or being overweight (this increases the pressure on the normal fat pad under the heel, causing it to expand sideways - if the skin is not supple and flexible, the pressures to 'crack' are high)
- Open backs on shoes (this causes the pad under the heel to expand sideways and 'crack')
- Medical conditions (neuropathy in diabetics limits sweating; an under active thyroid lowers the body's metabolic rate and there is a reduction in sweating, leading to a dryness of the skin)
- Skin conditions (psoriasis and eczema).
