V is for Vinegar

As we all know vinegar has been around for years and is used for lots of things.  It also comes in many flavors today and isn’t just plain white vinegar anymore.

They say it cleans windows better than any window cleaner, but I can’t stand the smell of vinegar.  Honestly, I would never use it if I could avoid it.  The odor makes me very ill.  But I use it in salad dressing and things like that and we use it at work all the time to soak pots that get burned on the bottom while doing a demo.  Vinegar is so strong it wafts all over the store.  I do everything I can to avoid burning anything so I don’t have to get near this stuff.

I have a personal story concerning vinegar that I don’t know if I should share or not.  It all started with having to wear socks and closed in shoes at work, preferably some type of sneaker with a good non-slip sole.  Let me tell you this, my feet aren’t designed to wear closed in shoes and sneakers all the time.  I’m working far too many days than I signed up for because we’re always shorthanded at work.  I much prefer wearing sandals or going barefoot, which I always do when I’m off work.  I do understand the need for all this footwear in a professional environment where food is served, but I still hate it and my feet hate it more.

This issue has caused me a lot of grief due to the fact I contracted the worst case of athlete’s foot I’ve ever had in my life.  I couldn’t seem to shake it so I decided to confront my friend, Google, and see what I could come up with.  I ended up on a chat board where this health issue was being discussed.  There were two options, soaking my feet in Clorox or white vinegar.  Well somehow the Clorox seemed a bit harsh, so I decided on the vinegar. 

Every night, for two weeks, I soaked my feet in this white vinegar and warm water bath.  I figured if this would do the trick I could put up with the smell of vinegar that long.  It stung like the devil for about the first ten minutes, but I kept at it soaking at least twenty minute a night.  Then I would dry my feet well, put on my athlete’s foot cream and socks and go to bed.  I was supposed to do this twice a day, but with my schedule I was doing good to do it every night.

It got less painful as time went on and in two weeks I thought I was a bit better, so I put on a pair of flip-flops and went out on a Saturday to clean up the patio.  This turned out to be a big mistake.  My toes were so irritated from the vinegar that I got the worst blister on my big toe.  I also had three other smaller blisters on other toes.  The athlete’s foot was better, but not gone, and now I had these wicked-looking blisters to deal with.  I finally had to break down and go to the doctor on my next day off. 

Of course he told me the vinegar helped to kill my athlete’s foot fungus, but it also damaged my healthy skin and that’s why I got the blisters.  He told me to stop the home remedies and gave me two cream prescriptions, plus an anti-fungal pill.  I was also instructed to soak my feett in Epsom salts for the next two weeks, preferably twice a day. 

I finally got the prescriptions two days later and I did soak my feet once a day for two weeks.  He told me I had to wear socks until the situation was healed up.  So I do wear sock at home, but no shoes.  It’s still the usual socks and shoes at work daily.  It’s been almost a month now and I’m still dealing with this issue, although it’s ninety percent better than when it started.  I’m hoping to have it completely cleared up in the next two weeks.  Fingers crossed.

The whole purpose of this post is to caution you about using vinegar on your body.  Perhaps I had the solution mixed up too strong, but I wouldn’t want to go through all this again.  I think the vinegar would kill the athlete’s foot, as well as the Clorox that a friend at work swears by.  But, a little bit goes a long way.