You may have seen some news articles recently talking about "COVID Toes" and many of our patients want more information on this topic. While the results are still very preliminary, COVID toes are generally, red areas on Toes, Heels or Fingers that appear similar to Chicken Pox, Chilblains or Measles and occur in patients who also have COVID-19.
These areas normally heal without leaving a mark!! Most of the patients experiencing skin lesions are children and young people (20 to 35 years old). Very few of the patients studied presented with clinical respiratory conditions. Although there is some mild discomfort or pain when pressed, the skin lesions were mostly asymptomatic; some people have noticed itching along with redness. Some of the patients presented with a fever or a cold 3-4 weeks before skin redness occurred. In one case study, 20.4% of confirmed COVID patients had some type of dermatological manifestation.
These lesions sometimes appear at the same time as the COVID infection but in other cases, the skin changes were not noticed until after hospital discharge. Of the reported cases, 78% of the patients presented with an erythematous (red) rash, 17% an acute urticaria(itching) and 5% vesicular lesions (blistering). We have also included a photo of some examples of patients who have had these types of lesions on their toes and heels. IF you think that you may have COVID toes, call our office today. We will ask that you send us a photo of your feet first for us to look at before coming into the office to avoid any potential spreading of COVID. Once one of our doctors has seen a photo of your foot and talked with you over the phone or on a Zoom meeting, we can go from there to getting you the best care and testing.
Again, we are getting reports and pictures of these lesions but very few studies have been published at this point and many of them are from international sites. We wanted to provide our patients with a summary of some of these articles for easy reference and as of today this is the most recent information available. We will continue to update if we have new information. Stay Safe!