My name is Mike Torres. The first thing you should know about me is that I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a skincare expert either.
But 2 years ago, I discovered the real reason behind my stubborn "dry skin" problem in the most unexpected place — and it wasn't what any of us thought it was.
I never used to worry about my feet. Hell, I'm a guy — Dove soap and maybe some Gold Bond powder was the extent of my foot care routine.
But once I hit 38, something changed. For the first time, I looked down at my feet and didn't like what I saw.
It was as if I hit a certain age and my body said, "Ok, time for your feet to look gross..."
But I didn't feel old. I had two kids, a demanding job in construction, and I was still hitting the gym 4 times a week. I didn't want to be the guy with nasty feet when I'm barely pushing 40!
Every morning, I'd notice the same thing: dry, flaky skin between my toes that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
The skin looked white and peeling.
Sometimes it would crack and sting. And the smell... let's just say my wife started making comments about my socks.
I was convinced I just had really dry skin on my feet.
I tried every foot cream, moisturizer, and lotion at CVS. I spent probably $200 over six months. I even tried that fancy O'Keeffe's stuff everyone raves about.
But nothing worked. No matter what I slathered on my feet, the dry, flaky patches kept coming back — usually worse than before.
One day, I was complaining to my buddy Jake who happens to work with a dermatologist at the VA hospital.
Jake's one of those guys who somehow looks 10 years younger than he is, despite being in the military for 12 years. I figured he might know about some good foot cream I hadn't tried yet.
"Mike," he said. "Have you ever considered that might not be dry skin?"
"What do you mean 'not dry skin'?" I asked. "It's dry, it's flaky, it's between my toes..."
He laughed. "Dude, that's probably athlete's foot. And if you keep putting lotion on it, you're just making it worse."
Little did I know, my buddy Jake had been holding back some crucial information from me. He told me about Dr. Richardson, the dermatologist he works with, who'd been seeing this exact problem in guys like me for years.
Dr. Richardson explained that what I thought was "dry skin" was actually a fungal infection that had been thriving between my toes for months.
So I decided to do my own research... I found out that athlete's foot doesn't always look like the gross, oozing mess you see in commercials.
