The (Not So) Surprising Enemy: Blisters

When you walk thousands of miles it’s inevitable that your shoes wear down badly. When you buy new shoes, even if you check carefully if they fit, while you break in your new shoes, blisters might appear. Are there any tricks to avoid them?

by FERENC IVANICS
As we were planning the WorldWalk-Peacetour project we tried to find all the problems that might occur. We grouped them into classes: our body, our health was one of those groups. We went over every possible pain, injury, disease and we tried to be prepared. At least to be prepared with knowledge. Many times we couldn’t afford to pay for vaccination against tropical diseases such as yellow fever, but we learned the symptoms and knew the emergency treatment.

So, we thought we were ready, the protecting knowledge was in our heads. Of course we knew that we would have to endure pain, muscle strains and small wounds. We were expecting to have back and shoulder aches, and leg strains. But we never thought about blisters. If you walk 15-20 miles a day you will have a close relation with your socks and trek shoes. And this strange engagement brings many compromises, with blisters as a side effect.

If you ask me, what was the first thing we had problems with, I will show you my little toe. And I’m quite sure, my brother, István would answer you the same way. While our backs and shoulders were suffering from backpacks weighting 65 pounds, during the first few hundred miles in Hungary and Austria blisters were our most terrific enemies.


First of all, why and how do blisters appear? There are factors that raise the probability of having a blister on your feet. If you walk hard you sweat, especially your feet. You wear your trek shoes and socks for many hours, so the sweat can’t dry. Walking hard heats your feet, too, so your feet are wet and hot. Heat and moisture soften your skin, and its layers can slide on each other, so a gap is created, and this gap is filled with a watery fluid. Friction—the result of walking in shoes and socks—speeds up the production of such gaps. And those gaps are called: blisters. If your shoes fit badly, the friction is stronger, more blisters appear.

We tried many techniques, but time was the only solution. First, we tried to drain the blisters. We made a small hole on the blister, and let the fluid drain from it. It’s a fun activity in the dark tent before turning in, or at the camp fire. But it doesn’t really help when you walk 15-20 miles the next day as well. You can try to protect the blisters with a bandage. Maybe it is a better way to treat or prevent blisters, but we weren’t totally satisfied. Then we tried to dry our blisters at the camp fire. No socks, no shoes, just our feet as close to the camp fire as possible. It’s a nice feeling on a chilly night.


So, our conclusion is: bandages can help sometimes, but only time can solve the problem. Time spent without shoes and socks helps heal blisters. Time spent walking helps your feet adapt to your shoes and helps your shoes adapt to your feet. But still, when we buy new trek shoes it’s not only an expensive experience, it’s a painful one as well...