Ingrown toenail

[UseThePeenEnd]

Didnt bother to read the whole thread so dont know if this has been suggested.

I had these on both feet. One I was able to fix myself by once or twice a day packing under the ingrown edge with alcohol-soaked cotton. This hurt. It eventually got to the point that it was no longer ingrown. You have to be clean and careful with this- obviously when you are stuffing anything into an already infected pocket, you can make the infection worse.

The other just recurred and recurred until finally my MD (who did a lot of this in the Korean War) just cut off about the outer 20% of the nail and killed the outer portion of the nail root with silver nitrate. This hurt too lol.

[wonderwes]

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I've been keeping it clean better and have been using Neosporin a lot in the past few days. The difference is remarkable. It looked terrible a few days back, but now it's feeling better and is looking more normal again.

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If the nail is still physically digging into the skin, it wont get better. The piece of nail needs to be physically ripped out. It sounds like the skin around it is healing (going from pink to normal color) but it is still dug in there.

Many times these nails become just a sharp narrow point to where you can't even physically see it. However using the clippers/toothpick you can still physically feel it there. Whats weird is the skin around your toe kinda bonds with the nail so its hard to tell what nail and what is clumped skin. I ripped out a bad nail where it tore a small lining of the skin with it. Its fine it will grow back. However I could feel just with my fingers how sharp the point was that I ripped out. No wonder there was sharp pain in my toe.

If you can find the edge of the nail I like to slowly see if I can make the nail pull up (like vertically upward). If you can do that, get the clippers dont cut it out, rather have the clippers grab that edge and see if you can slowly pull the edge of it out. Kinda like peeling the whole side out from the top of the nail to like half way down the physical nail. You will have to do it very slowly.

It will not get better until that piece of the nail is out of your skin. If it is a huge nail, I still recommend getting that thing professionally fixed. Personally these things just drive me nuts.

Toothpicks do help.

[wonderwes]

Oh yeah, soaking the foot in hot water for 45 sec in the bathtub will also help in trying to cut it out.

[jakethebake]

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Oh yeah, soaking the foot in hot water for 45 sec in the bathtub will also help in trying to cut it out.

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And add some epsom salts to the water

[MyTurn2Raise]

I have these bad...2 surgeries for both big toes and still no good. The mothers come back. The doctor said I would have this problem my whole life. He even poured the liquid in the root to kill off the nail, but it came back.

One problem was I didn't get it taken care of right away. I didn't want to miss any time from sports. Bad judgment.
Go see a doctor if it last more than a month.

On the flip side, I am very clean and preventative about every part of my body now.

Previous advice-cotton, alcohol, neosporin, cutting straight across, warm epsom salt baths, peroxide....all good

I've researched this big time and these seem to either alleviate or eliminate problems.

[peachy]

usually when u try and do it urself u just make it worse if u dont know how to cut it...go to a nail salon and get a pedicure - i am 100% serious...its better them doing it than u and a better option than surgery for now

[lighterjobs]

I used to get them when I was younger and didn't really know how to cut my toenails. Had to get one surgically removed and the part that was in my skin was bigger than the rest of my toenail. On a sidenote, a guy that I work with told me he had to get his ingrown hairs surgically removed and showed me a few of them. Disgusting.

[SuitedSixes]

I am the ingrown toenail master!

I once had one that actually grew through the top (front) of my toe. It looked like a blood blister, but when I put pressure on it, the nail popped through.

Non-insurance options (not healthy, but cheap):
Infection is your friend. Once you get some of the pus out, you'll have room to work with to dig it out. I cut vertically as much as I can, grab the loose end with pliers and pull.

Insurance options:
I've had the removal procedure probably five times. They'll put two injections at the base of your toe (which hurt like hell, you can feel the pressure of the liquid on the inside bottom of your toe). Once you are numb they'll start jabbing more shots in your toes, but by then you don't care. Then they'll cut straight down the middle and remove the bad half. I was miserable for five days after I had it done the first time. Subsequent times have not been bad at all, and I was mad that I waited getting it done.

If it is chronic, they can cauterize the nail bed which also hurts like hell. They'll do the procedure as above, but then stick some junk on a wooden q-tip and jab it in to where your nail used to be. I haven't had to go back in since I had this done.

[lighterjobs]

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I once had one that actually grew through the top (front) of my toe. It looked like a blood blister, but when I put pressure on it, the nail popped through.

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we have a winner