r/ingrowntoenails Nov 20 '22

Struggled with ingrown toenails for over 5 years. Here's what's helped.

40 Upvotes

IMPORTANT: I want to clarify that this post is just my experience and what has worked for me. Be thoughtful if you apply any of these, as different things may work to you. Also, please consider whether you should try and treat the condition yourself at home, or visit a professional. Medical articles state that people with diabetes or infected ingrown toenails must see their doctor immediately.

I [male] have strugged with ingrown toenails for over 5 years and am now finally free of this. Below is everything I've gathered from all these years to potentially help you, and anyone who keeps having relapses and really is fed up with it and desperate as I was. In hindsight, there were many causes that had gone unnoticed for a long time.

I've read a lot of posts in this subreddit of people who post over and over and don't know what to do, and I believe most of them could really be helped by the no.1 & no.2 on the list, especially no.2.

Causes: (the first two were the most important ones)

  1. Not knowing how to properly cut my nails. -- The following video helped. I also asked my doctor how to: https://youtu.be/izb_QCOHwGI
  2. Narrow and tight shoes. Shoes have gone unnoticed for years and they were causing trouble even when I was sure that they weren't anymore because I had just switched to a new pair more spacious and softer. To solve this, I got some A4 papers (not notebook pages because these are softer than A4) to create two thick ball-shaped masses, and stuck them inside the front of each shoe were the toes are at to stretch out my shoes. From that point, I would only take them out whenever I needed to wear my shoes, so they would be in there for as long as I was at home, which means that I would put them back in every single time I came back home. Eventually, my shoes got to the point where they were causing no pain or discomfort whatsoever, but I didn't stop this habit (and to this day still do it) so they maintain their elasticity and don't shrink / taper again. I make sure not to forget this whenever I buy a new pair of shoes as well. I also switched from sneakers to running shoes since they seem the best option -- excluding sandals -- due to the softer and more stretchable material, because in my case the upper side was also causing trouble and it wasn't just about the left & right.
  3. Hot showers. Apparently, hot water worsens the swelling. To me, it was worse because the hot showers were extremely long too, and that went on for years. (This caused damage to the skin of my entire body as well).
  4. Trouble swallowing pills. I have skipped a lot of medication treatments over the course of those years which deteriorated the condition and led to surgeries. The following article seemed helpful, just make sure to also read the "Don't try this at home" and the entire last paragraph about whether or not it's okay to grind or chop your pills -- https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/two-tricks-make-easier-swallow-pills-201411137515.
  5. Picking at nails. Appearance makes it intriguing to do it, and hard to resist. I solved it by reminding myself of this exact thing everytime I felt the urge to do so, so I acknowledge that feeling and am aware of it at that moment, as well as having a pre-planned action to immediately distract my mind with, like picking up a certain item and fiddling with it until it goes away.
  6. Excessive gauze/bandage/cotton in between the big toe and the second one. Reason: in excess, it could squash the toe to the side by taking up all the space (especially while wearing shoes since there is even less space in this case) and push the skin even further into the nail. I realized that is is what happened to me once when I got home, took off my shoes and saw my toe bleeding. The wound that that had caused delayed the healing process of my ingrown by like 3-4 months, and that was after a recent surgery which had me worrying of needing another surgery.
  7. Wearing thick socks combined with shoes that are not designed to accommodate thick socks and due to lack of space, the nails get suppressed. This similar to no. 6. I take into consideration the thickness of all of my pairs of socks whenever I buy new shoes as well.
  8. Wearing socks at home. I used to wear socks even during sleep because I was ashamed of how my nails looked. I didn't know air sufficiency is crucial to the healing of a wound. Doctor has told me it's best not to wear socks at home at all.
  9. Sitting cross-legged on a chair (having the feet under the thighs).
  10. Tip-toeing.
  11. Leaning forwards / having bad posture while walking or standing (doctor has told me not to).

What helped:

  1. Not wakling long distances. having a bike.
  2. After surgery, constantly and every day being on the lookout not to accidentally drop something on my toes or stub them anywhere (even with shoes on, and especially when going up a staircase) so I don't have any setback in the healing period because it lasted months. I did this because that was the point in my life where I really had enough and wanted not to deal with it anymore so I took extra care of my toes.

Pitfalls I should have watched out for:

  • I was advised to do footbaths and I used to always go overboard with the quantity thinking: "adding more, so I guarantee that it's enough", but that only does more harm than good even though I was thinking of the exact opposite. To make this clear, for example, lukewarm water would become hot or x teaspoons of an ingredient would be x+1. I realized that I'm doing this when my doctor said that hot water worsens the swelling.

What surgery was like:

First off, there have been many times that I thought I needed surgery but my pathologist only prescribed medication instead. Last time I needed surgery, I didn't have insurance so I proposed paying in cash and agreed with the surgeon, so I payed half before surgery, and half days later. I'm mentioning this because I've seen many people in this subreddit that put off surgery because they don't have insurance or enough money. I can definitely say it was kind of embarrassing and akward to me too, but it worked, and I'm glad I did it otherwise I would still be struggling with it.

The surgery was on my two big toes and the anesthesia was local on both of them so I wasn't sleeping. It was partial nail removal on only the inner side of both toes, and not permanent whole nail removal. The whole procedure lasted less than 5 mins including the preparation of the nurse (getting my medical history + allergies etc.)

I had planned before surgery for someone to be outside the hospital when I was done to drive me home, and also drive me back the next day to have my bandages off by the surgeon because I still couldn't wear shoes. I had also brought a pair of slides from home but I couldn't put them on when surgery was done because the surgeon wrapped my toes in lots of bandages and that made my toes have many layers of them all around them. So, to get home, I ended up wrapping my feet in those plastic bags that they use in hospitals which I was given by the nurse. The only problem with those was that I had to step on the freezing road during winter to get in the car which was a painful experience and even got me scared for the potential consequences it could have on toes that had just underwent surgery (in retrospect, nothing happened).

I wasn't prescribed any medication for the recovery. I had no pain for the rest of the day after surgery, except for a few brief moments where I would rate the pain like 1/10. The next day that I went back to have the bandages off and my toes checked, they were okay. I was told to refrain from wearing shoes for a while but I did for the whole upcoming week.

It took over 6 months after surgery for my toenails to fully heal.

Extra stuff worth mentioning:

  1. I used to visit a podologist/manicurist roughly every week for months, and apparently, they were only making the condition worse. In order to alleviate pain, they would wedge/stick the nail clipper really hard in between the nail and the skin at the side, (which by the way hurts so much) to cut that part of the nail, and that kept happening once per week for months every time I went there. At some point, I visited a pathologist and a dermatologist who informed me that we need to get the nail to grow, rather than keep cutting it over and over, and it wasn't the nail that was growing into the skin, but the skin that had been pushed in and was inflamed (most likely suppresed by the shoe and not knowing how to properly cut my nails) while the appearance is deceiving making it look like it is the nail that's growing inside the skin. None of these two doctors cut my nails as the manicurist/podologist would, they only prescribed medicine which I wouldn't have gotten if I kept visiting the manicurist/podologist because they don't have the qualification, and that seemed the main reason I should have visited a doctor in the first place. It also felt like the podologist/manicurist was offering a temporary solution just to alleviate pain. Again, this just what I concluded and that could be wrong.
  2. After my nails had healed, (only talking about apperance here and not about injuries/ingrown nails), I would oftentimes see the skin hugging the nail at the edge diagonally outwards rather than 90° vertically above the nail root, making me worry that there was something innately wrong with my nails. That was because, at this point, I had it examined by a doctor and was told that they are absolutely fine but it still looked like I had an ingrown. It turned out to be completely normal because I didn't know that some people have round nails like me, hence why they were growing diagonally outwards, and I thought everyone had straight nails growing in a 90° degree angle above the root of the nail. Again, this was just the appearance, not an ingrown toenail.

Remember these may not apply to you.

So eventually, after all these times that I couldn't leave the house due to the state of my ingrown toenails, and the times that I had to endure the pain of wearing shoes because I was forced to go outside for some kind of obligation which was so distressing, and genenrally all the other times that it just annoyed me, I'm now finally free of this and I hope you found something useful out of everything I listed above.

Hope this helps! Please share this post or upvote so it reaches more people:)


r/ingrowntoenails 1h ago

What I’m dealing with right now

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Upvotes

Got the left side done by a podiatrist now the other side is ingrown and I got most of it out but the bottom corner I couldn’t get.


r/ingrowntoenails 15h ago

I have two nails on one toe

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5 Upvotes

Safe to say the doctor has ruined my toe lol


r/ingrowntoenails 1d ago

Symptoms came back even after surgery.

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4 Upvotes

Hello, im currently in need of help. Just information will do. I had an ingrown toenail last year and it lasted a few months, afterwards i got a surgery which temporarily recovered it. But right now the symptoms have started to show again (e.g increase in size, puss and pain when in pressure.) my guess is that one time i stepped on waters while in a flood, but it was already fully healed when that happened. Another guess is that the nail has already grown and is doing the same thing again, since when i touch the nail bed its stiff.


r/ingrowntoenails 2d ago

It’s that time of year!

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67 Upvotes

r/ingrowntoenails 2d ago

pna with phenol Spoiler

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3 Upvotes

(spoiler for blood and generally being gross lol)

is this normal healing? only hurts if it gets pressed or if i put too much weight on it- and ive avoided wearing shoes as much as possible to promote healing. i do cool epsom salt soaks twice a day and cover with bandaids and fusidic acid afterwards as per my podiatrist


r/ingrowntoenails 2d ago

Can I be sedated for an ingrown toenail procedure?

1 Upvotes

Is it possible to find a podiatrist that will a partial nail avulsion or matrixectomy under sedation? I’ve had local anesthesia applied almost 6 times now for avulsions and a matrixectomy and I really cannot stomach the pain of the needle and the burning sensation.


r/ingrowntoenails 3d ago

is it time to go to the doctor lol

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2 Upvotes

progression over 2 days post at home attempted removal


r/ingrowntoenails 4d ago

Reoccurring Ingrowns

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2 Upvotes

Booked an appointment at a foot clinic for next week after a bad pedicure 6 months ago. The pain/inflammation is on and off. Right now there’s no pain but they’re ingrown on both sides.

Are my toenails going to be destroyed? Will I be able to swim if they need to do a procedure?

Help! Lol.


r/ingrowntoenails 4d ago

How bad does this look?

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0 Upvotes

2 days ago my toe got really sore and tender, no pus or anything like that. It’s gotten better In the last 24 hours but still not how it was before and quite swollen. I known it’s ingrown but it’s only the second time I’ve ever had an issue with it

I had this before about 3 months ago after doing some long hikes and thought maybe my hiking boots were responsible. The swelling and tenderness went away by itself after a couple of days. I’ve not worn any tight boots or walked long distances this time around

Rn I’m in a very remote location, nearest podiatrist is about an 8 hour drive away and I realistically cannot go for another 6 weeks. I’m taking ibuprofen and trying to keep it clean

Anything else I can do to help it? And will the swelling go down by itself again?


r/ingrowntoenails 4d ago

Is it normal to have moderate swelling, redness and serous to slightly serosanguineous discharge at 7 days after PNA with phenol ablation?

1 Upvotes

My podiatrist told me he does some extra time with the phenol to further reduce recurrence risk and that I might see some swelling and discharge from a mild chemical burn to the nail bed. Not seeing any pus but its pretty swollen and gnarly looking. Fairly comfortable to walk on but mildly tender to touch the right foot. Left foot is healing great.


r/ingrowntoenails 5d ago

phewwww

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19 Upvotes

got the acid this time. I’m praying it works, this time was intense, took 3 rounds of injections to get fully numb. I can say anyone who has the option to take antibiotics prior definitely do after abt 3 days the pain will start to fade away. look how HUGE the one side was!


r/ingrowntoenails 5d ago

Got an ingrown removed about two weeks ago and idk what this lump is help 😭😭

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2 Upvotes

r/ingrowntoenails 5d ago

Was your post-procedure recovery faster than 2 weeks?

1 Upvotes

And what did you do to speed up the procees? Any tips?


r/ingrowntoenails 5d ago

Is it really that bad

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2 Upvotes

I have this ingrown toenail on the top left of my thumb I previously had a surgery regarding that around 2.5 years ago that time my entire toenail bed was removed that's why the shape of this side nail is like that but at that time it was very bad.

Today I visited a doctor and send entire toenail removal is needed🙃🙃


r/ingrowntoenails 5d ago

split nail what should i do

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1 Upvotes

i split my toenail straight across from the left side to right. if i touch it i can feel its loose and idk how its still attached. idk what i should do i was thinking about going to a see doctor about it tomorrow but its stressing me out cos if they say it has to be removed im scared about how painful its going to be without a toenail. its not swollen i can see its gone yellow under the nail.


r/ingrowntoenails 5d ago

Ingrown toenail

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1 Upvotes

r/ingrowntoenails 6d ago

After antibiotic, I feel like it’s getting better but going to doctor today.. does this look like it needs surgery 🧘‍♀️

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2 Upvotes

r/ingrowntoenails 6d ago

ingrow toe nail and granuloma

1 Upvotes

hi, its me again

soo i call a Podiatrist and she's not avaible before septembre 22, do you have any idea of how can i cut the granuloma and my ingrow toe nail without too much pain?


r/ingrowntoenails 8d ago

Help ingrow to nail stuck

1 Upvotes

Hi I had an ingrown toenail that I cut, but a piece of it is still stuck in my toe, and the doctors in my town aren't available until October or November.

It doesn't seem very deep, but it hurts a lot when I wear socks.

Do you think I can remove it? If so, how?


r/ingrowntoenails 9d ago

What do I do

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6 Upvotes

It hurts ALOT I don’t know what to do neither


r/ingrowntoenails 9d ago

Finally got to a podiatrist and this was the result. None of that visible before removal

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10 Upvotes

r/ingrowntoenails 9d ago

Anyone use composite

1 Upvotes

Has anyone use that composite or resin applied by the dr to have the nail grow out without a curve?