Splinters, who gets them and who doesn't?

SI barefoot

Barefooters
Jul 15, 2014
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Carbondale, Il
If there is one problem I seem to deal with on a regular basis while living and running barefoot, it's splinters. I get little black ones from the asphalt and I get little wooden ones from being in the garden on the mulch. They mostly show up on the balls of my feet or lateral midfoot. Is this a common occurrence with others, as well? Will the skin on the balls of my feet toughen up enough over time to resist the pointy little stowaways, or can I expect this to be an ongoing consequence of living barefoot? It's not enough to detract me in any way, but if there is a solution, other than wearing shoes, I'd like to hear it.
 
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Give it some time and always do yardwork (except cut grass) in your barefeet! I spent the afternoon unloading a truck full of mulch into my flower beds today and went splinter free. I have been running barefoot and spending plenty of time in the yard barefoot since 2010.
 
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I used to get all sort of little nicks and scratches. I don't get those any more.
I also used to get tiny 2-3mm shards of glass in my feet from broken glass in the street (due to clumsy sanitation workers or overfilled recycling containers). I also don't get those anymore, as I run on sidewalks now.
 
Why not cut the grass barefoot? That's what I did last weekend.

I tried that once and the bottom of my feet were greenish for over a week.

I don't get splinters, but I did have a thorn from a pyrocanthis bush jammed in pretty good a last month. I think those things are venomous. Even after I got it out it felt like it was still there for a week. I won't trim the hedges barefoot anymore.
 
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I always cut the grass barefoot now, but on the tractor (not the big tractor I have a pic of riding barefoot in the Barefootedness forum, but smaller garden tractor). As far as splinters yeah every once in a great while, but its very rare. Think I've had to use tweezers maybe twice or three times in 3 years.
 
Yup - understand when you have potentially venomous thorns lurking about! Luckily I don't have those sorts of things to worry about. The occasional sharp twig may cause a wince or two but that's it. The old railway trail I run on has lots of glass shards - but they are all small and flat. Like Triston I have only had 2 or 3 pieces embedded in a foot over 5 years. A needle, tweezers and hydrogen peroxide and we're good to go the next day.
 
I got a form of flesh eating disease from wild rose bush thorns years ago from doing my lawn in shorts and bare feet. Was off work for a month, could hardly walk for about 10 days. Super sick! Never, ever again! It's coveralls and work boots every time for me.
 
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No splinters, but I got a small shard of glass one time, my skin was fairly thick by then so I think I ran on it for quite a bit and got is lodged in pretty good, took about a half our of 'surgery' to remove, but was not painful. And some disinfecting of the divot the surgery made, followed by a dab of superglue, fixed it right up.

As an aside, on long runs or runs to unfamiliar places, I have considered taking a small tube of superglue with me, just in case I were to get a decent skin tear from something, but for some reason I just never get around to it.