Infected ingrown toenails-need "surgery"?!
Question: Infected ingrown toenails-need "surgery"!?
i have my left toe ingrown on both sides and the doctor put me on 500mg of keflex and made a podiatry appointment for thursday!.!.!. how bad is it to have your ingrown toenails removes!? does it hurt!? how long!? any more advice you could give would be great!!! thanks!!!Www@Answer-Health@Com
Answers:
Hello,
I used to do a lot of big-toenail surgery on my patients because soldiers get ingrowing toenails a lot, (all that marching about in heavy boots)!.
In answer to your question, you should have local anesthetic injection into the base of your big toe before anyone tries to remove the nail, - - otherwise it would be like the Gestapo, wouldn't it!? - - but I'm afraid that the injection or freezing process is quite painful, 'cos it's one or more jabs into the skin!.
I think you need to look beyond the simple removal of your ingrowing toenail!. A simple removal will cure you until the nail re-grows again, as it will do, and there is no absolute certainty that it will not be ingrowing on one or both sides again!. If your big toenail is 'too wide' for the nail bed, it may dig in again 'cos it's like trying to drive an 8- foot wide car into a 6- foot wide garage!.
You may prefer to just try it and see!. Hopefully simple removal will be a permanent cure, I can't say it definitely won't be!.
The only guaranteed permanent cure is to destroy the nail root, i!.e!. the germ cells at the base of the nail, which manufacture the nail and make it grow up from the bottom!.
It's possible to just destroy the two side-edges of this root, so that the new nail grows again but not so wide!. I used to do this a lot for soldiers using 'phenol' (pronounced 'fee-noll') on a cotton- wool stick!. (I won't go into the other technical details)!. It worked very well but the nail was then narrower for the rest of the soldier's life!.
There are also minor surgical operations which achieve the same thing!.
In any event I'm afraid that after removing a toenail, the soft nail bed under it is exposed, is tender and may well get infected before it hardens up!. After all, there is a source of infection nearby, (the infected side-folds of skin)!.
If you have the *whole width* of the nail-root destroyed, you won't have a big toenail again on that side ever, just the hard skin underneath, - - which may be cosmetically unsightly for you!.
I'm afraid I may have painted a rather negative picture!. The podiatrist may not, in fact, want to remove your toenail, - - he/she may want just to apply liquid nitrogen, or some such, to the infected skin folds, - - or to insert protective plastic sheaths along the two sharp edges of your big toenail!. There are lots of different treatments!.
I hope this is of some help and not too discouraging!. I'm afraid that just Keflex by itself will not wholly cure your problem, whilst the nail edges continue to dig in!.
I'd encourage you to make sure you discuss all these treatments options with your new Podiatrist!.
Best wishes,
Belliger (retired uk miltary doctor)Www@Answer-Health@Com
I used to do a lot of big-toenail surgery on my patients because soldiers get ingrowing toenails a lot, (all that marching about in heavy boots)!.
In answer to your question, you should have local anesthetic injection into the base of your big toe before anyone tries to remove the nail, - - otherwise it would be like the Gestapo, wouldn't it!? - - but I'm afraid that the injection or freezing process is quite painful, 'cos it's one or more jabs into the skin!.
I think you need to look beyond the simple removal of your ingrowing toenail!. A simple removal will cure you until the nail re-grows again, as it will do, and there is no absolute certainty that it will not be ingrowing on one or both sides again!. If your big toenail is 'too wide' for the nail bed, it may dig in again 'cos it's like trying to drive an 8- foot wide car into a 6- foot wide garage!.
You may prefer to just try it and see!. Hopefully simple removal will be a permanent cure, I can't say it definitely won't be!.
The only guaranteed permanent cure is to destroy the nail root, i!.e!. the germ cells at the base of the nail, which manufacture the nail and make it grow up from the bottom!.
It's possible to just destroy the two side-edges of this root, so that the new nail grows again but not so wide!. I used to do this a lot for soldiers using 'phenol' (pronounced 'fee-noll') on a cotton- wool stick!. (I won't go into the other technical details)!. It worked very well but the nail was then narrower for the rest of the soldier's life!.
There are also minor surgical operations which achieve the same thing!.
In any event I'm afraid that after removing a toenail, the soft nail bed under it is exposed, is tender and may well get infected before it hardens up!. After all, there is a source of infection nearby, (the infected side-folds of skin)!.
If you have the *whole width* of the nail-root destroyed, you won't have a big toenail again on that side ever, just the hard skin underneath, - - which may be cosmetically unsightly for you!.
I'm afraid I may have painted a rather negative picture!. The podiatrist may not, in fact, want to remove your toenail, - - he/she may want just to apply liquid nitrogen, or some such, to the infected skin folds, - - or to insert protective plastic sheaths along the two sharp edges of your big toenail!. There are lots of different treatments!.
I hope this is of some help and not too discouraging!. I'm afraid that just Keflex by itself will not wholly cure your problem, whilst the nail edges continue to dig in!.
I'd encourage you to make sure you discuss all these treatments options with your new Podiatrist!.
Best wishes,
Belliger (retired uk miltary doctor)Www@Answer-Health@Com
well, i have never had one, but one of my friends had to get hers removed, and hers had infected a part of her toe!.!. and it got so bad she had to get a little part of her toe removed as well!.!. Hopefully for you, you shouldn't have that problem, but my friend was a cheerleader and she was better in a little over a week!. You will either be asleep or your foot will be very numb!.!. and!.!. you will get strong pain meds for the following probably 2 weeks!.!. it shouldn't hurt any worse than your current situation!Www@Answer-Health@Com