A man who was forced to wear socks while swimming has received surgery for his curled "alligator feet".
Jefferson suffers from a condition called mallet toe which is a deformity in the toe that causes it to bend, and as an enthusiastic swimmer, he has been forced to wear socks in the pool "ever since [he] was a little kid" to prevent people from seeing his feet.
In a bid to get help, Jefferson recently appeared on an episode of My Feet are Killing me. On the show, he was examined by Dr. Brad Schaeffer, a Jersey-based podiatrist, who said he has one of the worst cases of mallet toe that he's ever seen.
Listen to Jefferson discuss his condition below:"From this angle, I can't even see the front of your toes," the doctor said. "His toes basically look like he was walking on amputations, I mean that's how curled up they were. It's pretty shocking."
Jefferson's toes aren't the only foot issue that he is facing, with Dr. Shaeffer noting that he also has athlete's foot. "He had athletes foot all over his feet, he had maceration in-between each toe, basically like if you go into a pool for too long. He had that times 10," he observed.
Jefferson described his feet as a "mess" adding: "They're ugly, they're dry, they're all over just bad."
Jefferson was so self-conscious about his feet that he refused to let his girlfriend, LaShai, see them until they had fallen in love. "I completely understand why," she said. "Jefferson's feet look kind of like alligator feet."
Swimming isn't the only thing that's difficult for Jefferson, he also finds walking a challenge too.
"I'm walking on my toenails because my middle toes all curl over, so the nail curls over with them. If you try to pull it up and cut it then it bleeds sometimes. It's so painful that I just leave them."
The only solution to Jefferson's problem was surgery and Dr. Shaeffer had to cut into the curl of his toes to reset them. This involved the doctor slicing into the head of each toe bone and removing them, before cutting into the flexon tendon to insert metal pins that would enable Jefferson's toes to straighten out.
It took six weeks for Jefferson to recover from the procedure, and it was then that he returned to Dr. Shaeffer's office for a follow-up appointment where he showed off his new, straight toes.
"I was just super happy about the result," the doctor said.
Jefferson is delighted with the results and hopes to finally be able to swim without his socks on in the near future.
