When you are outdoors, especially while hiking, blisters can be pretty commonly, especially if you don't take care of your feet. But if you don't care for your blisters properly it can be extremely painful. By providing the right care for them at the right time, you can ensure that they don't get any worse or get infected while you are out in the wild.

The first thing that you need to realize about a blister is that they can become very serious very fast if not treated. This means that you could get a really bad bacterial infection which could take your foot, just because of a simple blister. While this is relatively rare, it isn't unheard of, especially if you are camping for a long period of time, without a shower or proper methods of hygiene.

After stopping for a while, take off your boots and sock and look over your blister. If it hasn't popped yet, you have to make a decision. You can either leave it alone and live with the pain and treat it when it does pop or pop it yourself. My personal belief is that you need to pop it. It can't get better, until you get the juice out and treat it. This will also ensure that you have time to treat it and can clean it out.

After the blister is popped and ready to go, rinse it off with CLEAN water. If this means that you have to boil some water, make sure you do it for at least 10 minutes to ensure that all of the bacteria is out of the water. This is very important to keep it clean. Next, you should take antiseptic out of your first aid kit, if you don't have that, then use a banana slug if you have them in your area. If you don't have either, then hopefully you at least have some salt. Take this and spread it across the blister. This will probably feel quite horrible for a little bit, but it will dry out the blister quickly. Now, rinse it off again, and wrap your foot.

In order to ensure that it doesn't get worse, leave your boot off as much as possible. When you need them on, try wearing bigger socks, if this isn't possible then attempt to pack your foot with something soft, maybe a second sock, some cotton balls, anything. This will create a buffer between your foot and your blister. Without this, you'll just keep rubbing the blister raw and by the end of your trip it could be one big bloody mess. But that's about all you can do for a blister. Now just make sure that you clean it once a day, and hopefully within a few days it will be mostly better and you should be able to walk again without a whole lot of pain. This of course depends on how well you treated it and cleaned it out.

Learn more about this author, Clacky McSnackins.
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