Corns can be a common disorder of the foot that may be painful and difficult to treat. They are due to a lot of pressure on an area of skin. They are part of a normal mechanism that has gone wrong. Whenever there is excessive pressure on the skin, that area of skin will thicken up to protect itself. When the pressure goes on over a extended period of time, it becomes so thick that it is painful. This can be the same as the mechanism that happens when, for instance, cutting up wood. Doing this, you ultimately make a callus on your palm. A similar thing takes place on the foot with pressure from the ground or pressure on a toe from footwear. When you stop chopping wood, the thicker skin on the palms subside. The issue in the foot is that you keep putting on shoes and you continue walking, so the pressure continues and the thicker skin forms into a corn and will become painful.
Getting rid of corns is fairly easy and a skilful podiatrist can certainly take them out. That's the easy part. The difficult bit is stopping them returning. It can be one thing to take them off, however unless you take away that cause (the greater pressures on the region), chances are they will just keep coming back eventually. Corns do not possess roots that they can re-grow from. They come back because the cause remains. Getting rid of a corn is a lot like treating the symptom. They are going to come back unless the cause is taken away. That's where the ability of a podiatrist is needed to identify the correct cause. A full assessment is necessary of the function, footwear, foot shape and activities to sort out just what it is that is bringing about the higher pressure. Once that reason has been identified, then different treatments can be used to reduce that pressure. This might vary from simple shoe suggestions to foot orthotic to surgical treatment