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Recently I discovered that what I thought was athlete's foot was actually chilblains. Chilblains occur when your feet (or sometimes hands) are very cold and are warmed up very rapidly, which can burst capillaries under the skin and result in redness, swelling, and lots of itchiness. For me, the tops of my toes were most affected (not so much in between, or anywhere else on the foot).
For the past week I'd been soaking my feet in various different things, and spraying a variety of herbal antidotes, to no avail: the itchiness and redness hardly went down at all, and I was getting worried I had some bad infection.
Deeper online searching revealed I had chilblains, from coming in from walking in the snow, and resting my feet near a space heater right after taking my boots off.
For better or worse, chilblains seems to improve on its own over time without treatment (unlike a fungal infection). Soaking in a diluted hydrogen peroxide or vinegar solution did help temporarily relieve itching.
I also read somewhere a man treated his chilblains with decent success applying minced onion mixed with salt. I've yet to try it.
I just wanted to let you know, if you are primarily experiencing redness and itchiness on top of your toes, and your toes have recently been very cold, you might check to see if instead of athletes foot you're experiencing chilblains.
