You booked the appointment. Now there is a day or two of waiting, and a fair question: is there anything you should actually do before you arrive?

Mostly no. This is not bloodwork, and there is no fasting or prep kit. But a few small decisions in the 24 hours beforehand change how much a chiropodist can see and treat in the time booked, and two or three well-meant habits quietly make the visit harder.

What the opening minutes are for

A visit starts with looking. Skin texture, nail colour and thickness, pressure marks, how the toes sit, where hard skin has built up, what sensation and circulation are doing. Nearly everything that follows rests on that look.

So the rule behind the whole list below is simple: do not hide the surface, and do not remove the thing that needs treating. For the wider picture of what the profession handles and how a first visit runs, the first visit guide covers it. If you have not booked yet and the visit types on the screen all sound similar, which appointment you need sorts that out.

Leave the polish off

This is the most common thing that slows an appointment down. Polish hides the information a nail assessment depends on: colour change, white patches, dark lines, bruising under the plate, the pattern of thickening. A yellow or brown nail can point in several directions, and what the colour suggests is often the first clue worth following.

Regular polish can come off in the room. It takes a few minutes per foot, and those minutes come out of your booking. Gel and acrylic are a different matter, because removing them properly is slow, so deal with those before you come in.

If the visit is straightforward nail and skin care and nothing is being investigated, polish matters less. When in doubt, bare nails are the safer choice.

Do not cut your nails the night before

This one catches people out. Trimming right before a visit is a bit like mowing the lawn before the gardener arrives to look at the grass. If the appointment is about an ingrown corner, there needs to be enough nail left to lift, trim or brace. Taken down to the skin already, the useful part of the treatment may have to wait for regrowth.

The same goes for filing a callus flat, shaving a corn, or attacking a thick nail with a coarse file. Let your feet turn up in their usual state. That is the version worth assessing.

Bring the shoes you live in

Not the newest pair. The ones on your feet most days, plus anything specialized: work boots, runners, court or dance shoes, and the winter boots coming out of the closet around now. Wear patterns on the outsole and inside the heel counter say things about loading and gait that are difficult to get any other way.

Already wearing orthotics? Bring them, worn-out ones included, with the shoes they lived in. An old device shows what was prescribed, how it was actually used, and what it did to the shoe. That history is worth having whether or not new devices come up at all.

Write down your top three concerns

People forget things in the chair. It happens constantly, and what gets forgotten is often the item that mattered most to them on the way in.

Note the two or three issues you want looked at. For each one, jot roughly when it started, what makes it worse, and what you have already tried. Product names are useful. 'Some cream from the pharmacy' tells us far less than the tube itself, which you can simply drop in your bag.

Three is a realistic number for one visit. Arrive with nine and something gets rushed.

The medication and health list earns its place

This is not box ticking. Diabetes, circulation problems, blood thinners, immune-suppressing medication and a history of slow healing all shape how skin and nail work is approached, and sometimes change what is appropriate on the day.

A photo of your pharmacy labels is enough. If you are coming along with a parent or someone you care for, bring theirs as well, plus a note on who looks after their feet at home. That role has its own set of questions, covered in helping a parent with diabetic foot care.

The small practical things

• Clean, dry socks. Not for appearances. Damp skin and sock fluff make a skin check harder than it needs to be.

• Normally washed feet. A shower is plenty. A long soak immediately beforehand leaves skin pale and waterlogged, which is not the state it reads best in.

• A few extra minutes on a first visit, for history and forms.

• Your benefits card if you plan to submit a claim yourself. What any given plan covers is a separate question, and your insurer is the one who can confirm it.

• Nothing dug at or self-treated in the days before. An ingrown corner explored with nail scissors, or a wart hit with a strong acid, often has to settle down before anything useful can be done to it.

Routine care and assessments need slightly different prep

A routine care visit is mostly hands-on work: nails, hard skin, corns. Prep is light. Skip the polish, leave the nails and calluses alone, bring your usual shoes.

A full assessment leans on history and movement instead. Here the shoe collection, the old orthotics, the medication list and your written questions carry more weight, and it helps to wear something that lets the lower leg be seen and the knee bend freely.

Frequently Asked Questions

I already painted my toenails for a wedding. Does that ruin the appointment?

No. Regular polish comes off in the room in a few minutes and the visit carries on as planned. You lose a small slice of your booked time, nothing more. Gel and acrylic are the harder case, and those are worth removing at home if you can manage it.

Should I soak my feet the night before?

No need. A normal shower covers it. Long soaks soften and whiten the skin, which makes texture and colour harder to judge, so soaking right before a visit tends to work against you.

How many separate problems can realistically be handled in one visit?

Two or three, depending what they are. A nail issue plus a callus is usually comfortable. A nail issue plus a callus plus new heel pain plus a question about orthotics is more than one appointment, and saying so at the start beats running out of time at the end.

I take a blood thinner. Is there anything extra I should bring?

Bring the name and the dose, and mention it early rather than on the way out. It rarely rules out nail or skin work, but it does affect technique and how any bleeding is managed, so it is much better known before anything starts.

My old orthotics are worn flat. Are they still worth carrying in?

Yes. A worn device is evidence. Where the top cover has gone through, how the shell has flattened, which side gave way first: all of that shows how you load the foot across a real day.

Ready to book? Appointments can be booked through the clinic booking page. If you are unsure which visit type fits, describe what is bothering you in the booking notes and it can be adjusted before you arrive.