Urine and Athletes Foot

[RyJae]

TMI!

When I was much younger, my loving yet unorthodox parents had me pee on my athletes foot while in the shower, it seemed to work. As they never bought me anything for it, and it cleared up I always assumed it must of. Now when it happens I use the “real” stuff but it seems to take longer to work then well the gross way. Then again this was years ago, and my memory could be making a week out of 3 months.

[Philster]

Well…this is a tough one. As far as I know, urine is sterile, so I don’t think you could harm yourself per se. I suppose the salts in the urine could help stave off infection, but I’m not sure how well salts would work against a fungus.

My above answer is not in the best spirit of a factual answer in the GQ forum.

I do know that things tend to clear up on their own very frequently, and then we are left to draw cause and effect relationships between things when they really don’t exist. In other words, it is possible that the condition you had cleared up on its own. Time tends to blur details, too.

Additionally, you might be begging the question, because you have not clearly established that you actually had ‘athletes foot’.

[aktep]

Wikipedia, et al, contain a paragraph similar to the following:

@A bunch of encyclopedic websites

Proponents of urine therapy (urine therapy: urine therapy is a specialized branch of alternative medicine…
[follow hyperlink for more…]) claim that urine (urine: Liquid excretory product) is very effective at killing athlete’s foot. Urea (Urea: The chief solid component of mammalian urine; synthesized from ammonia and carbon dioxide and used as fertilizer and in animal feed and in plastics) , the “active ingredient” in urine, is already used in many drugs and treatments made by pharmaceutical (pharmaceutical: Drug or medicine that is prepared or dispensed in pharmacies and used in medical treatment) companies (companies: more facts about this subject) to treat athlete’s foot. This controversial treatment method recommends urinating on the infected area once a day in the shower. According to supporters, urine therapy (urine therapy: urine therapy is a specialized branch of alternative medicine…
[follow hyperlink for more…]) not only kills existing fungi, it prevents new fungi from growing in the infected area. However, at least one biochemist states that urea is only used to soften the outer layers of skin so that antifungal drugs can reach fungi below the surface, and that the urea must be concentrated and applied for a long period of time in order to be effective. (*) The existence of prescription creams such as Vanamide® which are indicated for dry or rough skin and consist of up to 40% urea supports this claim. Thus, it is unlikely that urinating on one’s feet in the shower will significantly improve a case of athlete’s foot.

I can’t find any medical site discussing one way or the other, yet.

[NurseCarmen]

Huh. You need a reason to pee on you feet in the shower?

[RyJae]

Well this though erm reoccured to me as my son currently has a case of athletes foot, and the OTC medicine is doing absolutely nothing to help. So before I tell him to go piss on himself…

[Uncommon_Sense]

We’ve had threads around here in which many dopers have claimed that they pee on their feet to clear athletes foot.
I do.
I remember the threads, but the dope is slow right now otherwise I’d do the search for you.

[RyJae]

@Uncommon Sense

We’ve had threads around here in which many dopers have claimed that they pee on their feet to clear athletes foot.
I do.
I remember the threads, but the dope is slow right now otherwise I’d do the search for you.

I tried to search but it kept freezing up on me, and I mean stopped. Only time I can do a successful search is around 2am EST it seems. And since I want my son to start his ahem Pee-therapy as soon as possible, if there is a consensus that it might work and no harm can come of it.

[scm1001]

biochemist says no http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/Mar2003/1048960363.Me.r.html

but it may improve your basball http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/2809/

[Moirai]

Couldn’t hurt, might help. Why not?

As long as you’re not asking other people to pee on you…