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Why am I Allergic to my Shoes? |
 When you think about the amount of hard work our feet do for us, it is amazing they give us so little trouble. That is why when you develop an allergic rash on your feet, it gets your attention. Because most of us keep our feet covered up almost all of the time, when a foot allergy rash gets established, it can become a maddening irritation.
Unlike other kinds of foot problems, a foot allergy rash is not something that simply goes away. Of course, like any rash, there are ways to make a foot allergy rash become less irritating. Good hygiene and care and reduce the rash and eliminate the itchiness. But because the rash is caused by a foot allergy, the only real cure is to identify what allergen causing your foot allergy and take action to avoid future contact with that allergen so you don’t have to suffer with a foot allergy rash again any time in the future.
Contact dermatitis is the medical term for a shoe allergy or a foot allergy rash. That means that your foot allergy rash is almost certainly coming from the skin of your feet making contact with something that is causing an allergic reaction in the form of a rash. It should be noted that because a foot allergy rash is a form of contact dermatitis, the allergic reaction is not limited to your feet only. If another part of your skin were to be exposed to the same allergen, you would develop a rash there as well.
A foot allergy rash often afflicts children whose skin is more sensitive and whose immune system has not become sophisticated enough to discern between something that is a genuine threat and an allergen. All allergies are the result of the allergy sufferer's immune system incorrectly attacking an otherwise harmless substance as though it was something harmful. And in the case of a foot allergy rash, the allergen is probably a combination of something in the shoes and the normal oils, dirt and bacteria that feet encounter all the time.
The most likely cause of a foot allergy rash are in the shoes that the sufferer wears the most often. Sometimes the chemicals that are part of shoe production cause an allergic rash in the skin of the foot, which becomes an annoying and repeated allergy problem. Some of the agents in shoes that can cause a foot allergy rash are…
- There is a formaldehyde resin that is used in the glue that is used in shoe production called paratertiary butylphenol that might be causing the problem.
- Many shoe parts are made up of various elements including some rubber chemicals. Rubber components are also sometimes used in glues that helped the various layers of the shoe hold together. These rubber elements can set off a foot allergy rash.
- Another component of shoe construction that can cause an allergy reaction is colophony.
- Leather shoes are tanned with a substance called a chromate. If your foot allergy rash is reacting to components of the leather tanning process, the rash will probably surface on the upper area of the foot.
- Rubber boots are glued together with rubber cement that can irritate the skin of your feet as well.
- Many times a foot allergy rash doesn’t surface right away. It is the process of wearing a shoe for an entire day wherein the sweat your feet produce interacts with the chemical allergen that sets off the allergic reaction.
You may wish to consult your doctor or dermatologist when you discover a foot rash to determine if you have athletes foot, a foot allergy rash or some other problem and so the proper treatment can be determined. In many cases if your doctor suspects you are suffering with a foot allergy rash, a patch test will help determine that once and for all.
In many cases, the symptoms of a foot allergy rash resemble other foot rash problems. But if you can get a confirmed diagnosis that what is troubling you is an allergic rash, you can then narrow down which shoes are causing the problem and what component in the shoe sets your foot allergy rash off and change your footwear accordingly to avoid the problem in the future.
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