My feet were screaming for mercy. Apologies for the following description, but after New York City’s deep-freeze winter, I had corns between my toes, thick callus pads beneath my big toes, and scaly dry lines all around my foot and up my leg. Both my heels had split, with deep cracks in multiple places; I had been super-gluing the flesh closed to prevent them from splitting further. Walking had become excruciating.
Honestly, it was a mess down there. My feet had reached a point of no return. Vaseline would sit on top of the skin without getting absorbed. Filing my heels in the shower felt dangerous (remember – open wounds). In addition, my pinkie toes have always been capped with thick, darkened nails that I thought were probably fungus. Antifungal formulas had zero success.
So when I was scrolling through Reddit recently, one particular post intrigued me: “Who is Scrubbing Feet in NYC,” wrote the poster. “I have seriously dry feet. And I HATE going to salons where they just tap my feet and move on [instead of sloughing off dead skin].” In the comments, several users recommended a medical pedicure at Aire, a podiatry practice in the Upper East Side. It costs $150, someone wrote, but can count towards a health insurance deductible. I clicked over to the website, saw that the clinic would accept payments via my health savings account, and I made an appointment right then.
I typically avoided pedicures, because applying nail polish to my messed up toenails seemed akin to putting a Band-Aid on serious feet issues. But I had never heard of a medical pedicure – medi pedi, for short. The treatment seems to have been around since the 2010s. Erika Allison, who owns NuFeet Medical Pedicures in Atlanta, Georgia, first had the idea to open a medical-grade pedicure salon while she was in school to be a nail tech in 2011. She saw a gap in the market for treatments that could bridge aesthetics and podiatry care.
“There was a significant amount of clients we had to turn down because we had to refer them to podiatrists,” Allison says. “What I realized is clients needed both: a state-licensed nail professional and a physician, collaborating together.” She then interned under a podiatrist and received a medical nail technician certification. She launched her medi pedi practice in 2015.
A typical service begins with a foot assessment, followed by a “reduction” process: this might include nail trims, dead skin exfoliation or any other removal of extraneous matter. Then come moisturizer and nail polish, if desired.
My experience at Aire was relatively similar. A nail technician guided me into a private room that resembled a doctor’s office, but with a plush spa chair, foot tub and pop radio soundtrack. She examined my foot and asked about what was irritating me. She did an initial clean, then a podiatrist stepped in to scrape off the calluses, corns and other localized rough patches with what looked like a tiny scalpel. It sounds scary, but the process was gentle and not at all painful – it even felt ticklish at times.
When I asked the doctor about the fungus, his response surprised me. “If I were a betting man, I’d say these are traumatized nails, not fungus,” he says. Traumatized nails! According to him, copious physical activity or too-small shoes can create friction, causing nails to thicken and discolor. He offered to send samples to a lab to confirm, but I didn’t think it was necessary. I knew I was guilty of wearing “fashion” shoes too narrow for my feet; I also play a lot of tennis, and the stop-start motions consistently push my little toes up against the toe box of my sneakers. (I’ve lost many toenails this way).
The doctor said all of my particular issues were typical for a flat-footed person. He recommended wider shoes, perhaps even a half size bigger, with insoles. He also said I had bunions, which develop when the big toe pushes into the second toe and the joint sticks out due to overpronation, or when the foot rolls inward excessively upon landing, with collapsed arches. He suggested I wear toe spacers around the house, so that my toes wouldn’t feel so squished all the time.
Afterwards, the technician scrubbed away the rough skin on my heels, spritzed oils and essences on my feet, then applied a chemical peel to help with the dryness and cracks. She recommended I apply 40% urea cream to my feet twice daily to exfoliate and lock in moisture. (Unfortunately, urea cream has a highly unpleasant and sticky texture – it feels as if I’m rubbing Elmer’s Glue into my skin, so I haven’t been doing this regularly. Cotton socks post-application can help with this.)
By the end of my medi pedi, I couldn’t believe how clean and baby-soft my feet looked – I honestly should have uploaded a photo of them to FeetFinder. I was hesitant to throw my Blundstones back on and walk a mile to my next location. What if I undid the work of the podiatrist and technician? But I was able to walk without pain. It was revelatory and I could have kept walking for hours. A regular pedicure could never!
If I had never gone to get a medi pedi, I would have continued normalizing cracked heels or assumed that I had untreatable nail issues. Speaking with a podiatrist likely saved me money as well; I could have paid a higher amount for a regular podiatrist appointment and getting a lab test done on my nails.
Anyone can have a medi pedi, says Dr Anne Sharkey, the owner of Solely Podiatry and Solely Nails in Austin, Texas. Her clientele include teenagers with no medical problems and people who have had some toes amputated (due to vascular disease or diabetes). Sharkey’s technicians use electric nail files with vacuums, and a variety of drill bits and sanders, to reduce and suck up callus formations and dead skin.
Sharkey’s podiatry office is attached to the salon, so if a technician sees anything that might require medical attention – say, a wart or ingrown toenail – Sharkey can check it out. “Technicians can’t diagnose and they can’t treat, so that’s what I’m here for,” she says.
Most clients, however, leave the medi pedi with clean feet and no real issues. Certain foot problems do recur, but that simply boils down to the way individuals’ feet are shaped, activity or walking patterns, or the kinds of shoes they wear, says Sharkey.
Allison and Sharkey say clients return for medi pedis about every four to eight weeks. That wouldn’t work with my budget, but I loved the experience of getting a medi pedi after a harsh winter, and I’d like to treat myself to it once or twice a year. Chanel Parks, a Brooklyn-based editorial strategist and beauty writer, is on a similar cadence. “Something I really like about medi pedis is that they make my nails look insanely good without nail polish. It’s always nice to get my nails buffed and refreshed and not looking quite as goblin-y,” says Parks.
When I ask her how she feels about the price point of medical pedicures, Parks likens the experience to any beauty service: “You get Botox, it’s temporary, you get hair color, it grows out. I feel like medi pedis are just another financial trap for beauty, but it feels like a really nice thing to do for yourself.” I would have to agree. Plus, I don’t want to live in a world where my feet are covered up all-year round. With summertime approaching, I’m already plotting my next appointment.
Jinnie Lee is a New York City-based culture writer
