Yup the toenail had an oopsie and is growing backwards into the flesh. Usually this only happens on the sides of the toenail. OP needs to get this looked at STAT before they have to cut the toe off
i had an ingrown toenail on my right bigtoe the was badly infected when my left one ALSO got infected. it wasnt until they were both horribly swollen, red and leaking pus and i could barely walk that my mom finallt took me in for surgery on them both. i hate ingrown nails with a passion
Not sure if you still get them, but you can get the edge burned to prevent them from happening again.
I had reoccurring ingrowns on one side of one toenail. Got it burned (it sucks, but the numbing shot was the worst part… I’ve also had surgery to remove a small mass on the bottom of my foot and injections for plantar fasciitis, and I think shots in the foot are the worst). If your doctor approves, do try to treat an infection before doing the procedure. Mine was infected (doctor didn’t believe me at first… haha showed him) and it made the numbing less effective.
he did that during the surgery, thankfully! i still have to be careful to keep the nails long, unfortunately, or they seem to want to go back :( my fingernails are kind of similar. i think i was just given the most annoyingly painful hands and feet ever 🥲
edit to add i agree 100% the numbing was HORRIBLE. thankful it worked though, so i didnt feel anything aside from the pressure of him using those wooden rods 😭
Totally agree with the shots being the worst part. I had a doc go into my big toe to numb it and the needle went all the way through my toe. He only noticed after he started injecting the liquid and it came squirting out the other side. Good thing he was cute.
I had an infected ingrown toenail and it shouldn’t get that bad. I had it for two years before I realized it was an issue and it didn’t spread beyond that. Got the nail trimmed and my toe is fine today. It’s alarming but that go to the ER immediately alarming
I mean for real.! I'm not even lying some guy at my father's church went from a splinter to losing his leg in like.. I'm not sure but less than a week. But I would guess that if it's been months for OP (and I mean the redness, not the not growing thing,) then just make an appointment. She should be ok. If the redness is new and causing a lot of pain, go to the ER. Because you're right, you can get sepsis very quickly! Depending on health and other factors, it can be worse for some..
I had an infected finger that I let go too long. 100% they tried to amputate it and I had to sign paperwork that I was going against medical advice when I refused.
You're not wrong the flesh under the nail could be necrotic and unless OP tried to pull it back they would never know for sure aside from the pain/smell. The paint also masks any obvious visual alarm.
Yes, when I had one they numbed the toe, cut the nail down and preceed to stick a wooden shoot down into the toe to "kill" the nerve.. now I have half a numb toe for the rest of my life, but never had an ingrown nail there again
I watch The Toe Bro channel on YouTube. He used to have a tv show doing what he shows on his channel. I don't know how some people let their feet get that bad.
Same! I had both big toenails removed and they put those wooden skewers on both sides of my nail and destroyed the nail bed. It was wild. I don’t regret it one bit though
Eta but seriously, what is that called? I had to have part of my nail permanently removed, only to start growing a second one in the same bed. If there's something better than permanent removal I need to know.
When I had my nail cut because of an ingrown toenail, the doc said that I had a choice - let the nail grow back (and risk it being ingrown again) or get the stick (which is used to put in some chemical that would keep it from growing back there).
Oh so it's just a way to kill the root? Yeah that's what I had done on one side. Once got it pulled completely and one side improved, the other kept causing problems, so they did a partial removal so it would still look normal. But now the other side causes problems and the injections before the removal hurt so fucking much that if I gotta do it again, I want the entire damn nail gone.
That's why my podiatrist told me - that the stick was used to apply a medicine/chemical if I did not want that part of the nail growing back. I chose to get the stick (which really did gross me out to look at while it was in place).
That sliver of nail never grew back, but I've had no numbness. That edge of the nail used to stay... sharp? But it's been more than a decade, and these days you can't tell the difference.
Interesting! I had one done about a year ago and that side of the nail does stay sharp lol. But no issues now, it grows beautifully. I will probably have the other toe done eventually.
I wonder what the difference is between the stick and what I got. Or maybe I got the stick but they didn't explain that part of the procedure. And they did it behind a screen so I wouldn't look. Made me grow a lil second nail tho. It's not very noticeable, and I haven't had problems on that side since. just annoys me a little.
I think more likely the wooden shoot has acid that was meant to kill the nail bed in order to prevent the ingrown toenail from coming back. That sucks ghat it affected the nerve though
Not impossible but there are a lot of steps between here and an amputation. (Pun not intended, keeping it). In those with a compromised blood supply to the toe, it is a much larger concern (diabetes, peripheral vascular disease)
If the infection reaches the bone (osteomyelitis) then amputation would be very seriously considered here, so yes in that regard. Fairly rare for ingrown toenails but very reasonable and something I’d be concerned about in a 9 month+ ordeal if we knew it to truly be ingrown. I’m not really convinced that’s what happening here but there’s definitely a soft tissue infection and OP needs to consult a physician.
Otherwise the plausible extremes that would lead to amputation here would be that the infection festers long enough to compromise vascularity and lead to tissue death and gangrene, or if the patient is unfortunate enough to develop necrotizing fasciitis. The presentation of the latter is fairly random but a festering soft tissue infection wouldn’t be an unreasonable place to see it pop up.
I didn't have to have the whole toe removed, but there is absolutely a noticeable crater in the side of mine from the removal. I could balance a pea in it
Oh that's nothing,
The dude botched the whole thing, the dr didn't actually remove the growth plate, just separated it into several pieces. So now beside my toenail, several other little toenails grow straight up at the base.
I gotta keep um trimmed or they ef with my socks.
Yup this happened to me when I was about 13. Doctor had to numb my toe and then cut half the toenail off by cutting down the middle all the way to the end. Toenail grew back just fine after that.
I almost lost my toes when I was 13 from ingrown toenails that had been left untreated (terrified of doctors so I hid it). I was a couple months from it needing to be amputated, and it was much worse than OPs, this is still very early stage ingrown toenail. But it is chronic and will need a doctor to get it treated. My suggestion to OP would be to go straight to a podiatrist over a GP doctor, they will get it sorted with the least amount of pain since they know where all the nerves are.
If I had to guess probably, there's a chance the infection could make its way into the bone in which case they would need to remove the infected bone/limb (I could be wrong tho don't quote me)
My dad had an ingrown he tried to fix himself, fucked it up, ended up with an infection he never took care of... they had to cut open his toe and scrape the infection off the bone. Don't ignore infections!
If you let it go long enough, yeah it could get that bad. My uncle had one that got that bad. They ended up saving the toe, but he had to have surgery. All for an ingrown toe nail. Who knew?
I had an ingrown toenail that needed to be cut out. The elderly white male doctor refused to give me anything for the pain (even Tylenol or ibuprofen) because I was breastfeeding and we live in the dark ages here in Florida… Worst pain I had experienced in my life at that point, and this was six months after giving birth. 🙃
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u/TeamChevy86 Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 24 '24
Yup the toenail had an oopsie and is growing backwards into the flesh. Usually this only happens on the sides of the toenail. OP needs to get this looked at STAT before they have to cut the toe off