Athlete’s Foot needn’t be the widespread problem it is. Most sufferers catch the disease by not practising proper footcare (failing to wash and dry their feet regularly and thoroughly, sharing towels, walking barefoot around swimming pools and changing rooms), and fail to eradicate it by not complying with treatment regimes, or by choosing ineffective treatments. Non-compliance with the use of antifungal topical treatments occurs in a majority of patients. In a former study, nearly 50% of patients neglected proper dosing, and 25% stopped treatment when symptoms disappeared¹.

 

Antifungal treatments are the only effective cure, yet in a recent survey², only 41% use topical antifungals. In this survey, 23% of the patients suffered for more than 10 years and the infection flared up 5 times per year on average.

 

Antifungal treatments include fungicidal products such as Lamisil ^®AT and Lamisil Once^® which kill the fungus quickly, and fungistatic products which require daily applications for up to four weeks to eradicate the fungus. Yet only 13% of users of fungistatic products treat the condition for more than 20 days². Most tend to stop treatment as the symptoms subside.

Furthermore, few sufferers apply antifungals all over both feet.  This often means they fail to eradicate all the fungi, which could spread even if there are no visible lesions.

 

So it's hardly surprising then that recurrence is frequent. In the same study, 65% of sufferers said they had four or more incidences of Athlete’s Foot a year, and nearly 40% felt there was no effective cure.

 

All of this points to the need for a single-application fungicidal product. Lamisil Once^® is the first such product.

We've interviewed a number of Athlete's Foot sufferers - come and meet them.