It doesn’t hurt to try easy way to fight blisters

Brett Rivers (right), owner of the San Francisco Running Co. in Mill Valley, leads a group 14-mile run through Tennessee Valley in Southern Marin. Brett Rivers (right), owner of the San Francisco Running Co. in Mill Valley, leads a group 14-mile run through Tennessee Valley in Southern Marin. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close It doesn’t hurt to try easy way to fight blisters 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Grant Lipman thinks he’s figured out how to stop a scourge that’s plagued shoe-wearing creatures since, well, the invention of shoes: blisters.

The Stanford doctor, who specializes in wilderness medicine and has spent years studying endurance athletes performing under extreme conditions, led a team of scientists in a quest to develop a proven technique for preventing blisters. And while the solution they found isn’t perfect — put under enough stress and abuse, skin’s always going to blister eventually — it’s cheap, easy and surprisingly effective.

The answer is surgical tape, sold by the roll at most basic drugstores; 360 feet of it costs $10 online. The tape is thinner than Band-Aids and moleskin, the more traditional blister-prevention methods, and not nearly as sticky and suffocating as duct tape, the desperate solution for people in desperate foot pain.

“Blisters are everywhere, and they’re a real problem,” said Lipman. “But people have very infrequently studied this critically, and there’s no simple answer to prevent them up until now.”

Blisters occur largely due to friction. When the surface of the skin rubs against the inside of a shoe — or a sock or even a neighboring toe — that repeated stress damages the cells that make up the layers of the epidermis. The layers begin to separate and fill with fluid, and that’s the blister.

Blisters are usually just a minor nuisance, but they can quickly become extremely painful and even disabling. Lipman said he’s seen ultra-marathoners end up in the hospital with blisters that broke open and became infected. He’s seen people drop out of races. Once he heard of a hiker who had to be airlifted from the wilderness when he wasn’t able to walk out on his own due to blisters.

“Everyone has a blister story,” Lipman said.

Including the doctor himself: He was breaking in a new pair of boots on a three-day backpacking trip and got terrible blisters on both feet after 2 miles. He did the rest of the hike in sandals.

Martin Hoffman’s last major blister was in 1977, and his ability to remember the year should be telling. He was running barefoot over hot sand and, after 6 miles, a blister on the bottom of one foot split open. “You can imagine how fun that was.”

Tough feet

He’s never had a serious blister since, largely because Hoffman, a 59-year-old ultra-marathoner, runs lots of miles and his feet have adapted, he said. Plus, he doesn’t run barefoot on hot sand anymore.

But he recognizes that blisters are an underappreciated injury for a lot of people, especially endurance athletes. Hoffman, a scientist at UC Davis who has studied ultra-marathoners, said blisters are by far the most common complaint among his runners.

And they don’t just affect athletes. Anyone who’s ever had a day ruined by a new pair of shoes knows they can be a nightmare. In the military, blisters can even prompt safety concerns.

“People don’t generally die from these or even have serious medical consequences, but they can sure screw up your day,” Hoffman said. “If you’re in the wilderness and not very mobile, it can become a life-and-death situation. If you’re in the military, it could certainly interfere with your concentration and your safety.”

Lipman’s solution to blister prevention came from a study of 128 ultra-runners who participated in multiday races that covered hundreds of miles under absurdly tough conditions, across the deserts of Jordan, Madagascar and China. The study was published Monday in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.

Athletes who joined the study had one foot taped by a professional in areas where they were prone to developing blisters. The study only looked at the one foot, comparing taped regions with untaped regions to determine if the surgical tape was working. On the other foot, the athletes used whatever blister prevention method they preferred.

Blister tally

At the end of the races, the blisters were added up — 117 among the 128 study participants. Only seven runners had no blisters at all, but there was a marked difference in the number of blisters on untaped spots. The tape, scientists found, reduced blisters by 40 percent.

There are very few similar studies of other blister-prevention methods, but previous research has produced lackluster results for techniques like lubricating feet or spraying them with antiperspirant to keep them dry. Studies of specific blister prevention bandages have been mixed.

Lipman noted that experienced runners — or hikers or just plain walkers — who have a trusted blister prevention method should stick with it. And that’s what Brett Rivers planned to do.

He relies on well-fitting shoes — he owns San Francisco Running Co., a shoe store in Mill Valley — and lubricant. And that’s allowed him to repeatedly finish the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile race through the Sierra.

Still, experience has taught him that blisters are, at some point, unavoidable.

“I just know at that distance I’m going to get some blisters,” Rivers said. “You’re not running 100 miles because it’s easy.”

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com