This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. When on the feet, corns can be so painful as to interfere with walking. Pressure corns form when chronic pressure on the skin against an underlying bone traces corn in beef stew usually elliptical path during the rubbing motion.

The corn forms at the center of the pressure point and gradually widens and deepens. Corns from an acute injury, such as a from a thorn in the sole of the foot, may form due to the weight of the body, when the process that creates the usually evenly developing plantar callus is concentrated at the point of the healing injury, as an internal callus may be triggered by pressure on the transitional scar tissue. A hard corn is called a heloma durum or clavus durus, while a soft corn is called a heloma molle or clavus mollis. Many languages have metaphoric phrases for corns. Several are based on the word for ‘eye’: e.

The hard part at the center of the corn resembles a barleycorn or shoe tack, that is, a cone or funnel shape with a broad top and a pointed tip at bottom. Because of their shape, corns intensify the pressure at the tip and can cause deep tissue damage and ulceration. The location of soft corns tends to differ from that of hard corns. Hard corns occur on dry, flat surfaces of skin.

The corn’s center is not soft, however, but indurated. To exclude other differential diagnoses, a skin biopsy may be taken. Imaging studies can be used in order to detect any underlying bony abnormalities that cause abnormal pressure on the overlying skin. Treatment of pressure corns includes paring of the lesions, which immediately reduces pain. Another popular method is to use a corn plaster, a felt ring with a core of salicylic acid that relieves pressure and erodes the hard skin.