Recently over our lockdown period, as we were unable to see patients under our higher alert levels, the questions around ingrown toenails came rolling in. A lot of the queries came after people had tried fixing their ingrown toenail at home. Some felt their pain had become worse, for some it stayed the same – and most people just wanted to know what they could do to help get some relief until the restrictions eased.
Given the number of people that tried fixing their nail at home first, we thought we’d share our tips for what NOT to do when you have an ingrown toenail, in case you find yourself in a situation again where you can’t get to your podiatrist for one reason or another.
1. Don’t Rip The Nail Off
When you pick, pull or rip the toenail, though it may seem like a way to get the nail off deeper than you can see, it very rarely helps an ingrown toenail – in fact, it’s often the original cause of ingrown toenails. As you get to the end of the nail and you pull it off, the nail often leaves behind a jagged edge where it is pulled. As it grows, this sharp spicule penetrates the surrounding skin and causes an ingrown toenail.
2. Don’t Cut Deep Down The Side Of The Nail, Beyond What You Can See
Toenails should be cut straight across, following the natural curvature of the toenail. They should not be cut down the side of the nail, as this encourages ingrown toenails. Often, the skin beside an ingrown toenail will swell and start to overlap the nail. This makes it difficult – and painful – to trim a toenail and see what you’re doing – and whether you’ve gotten all of the nail, or have left behind a piece of the nail – or even formed a new nail spicule to cause you pain in the future.
3. Don’t Cut A V In The Middle Of The Nail
It used to be thought that cutting a V in an ingrown toenail could help fix an ingrown toenail by encouraging the nail to grow more towards the centre of the nail to fill the V. Now we know this isn’t true and isn’t helpful. In fact, cutting the V and leaving the nail without proper treatment may worsen the situation as the nail can become infected, or the existing infection may worsen.
4. Don’t Wear Tight Shoes
Not only will it be painful, but it may push the sharp nail spicule further into the skin, causing more damage.
5. Don’t Rely On Painkillers, Antibiotics Or Other Medications To Fix The Problem
An ingrown toenail is caused by a piece of nail entering and growing into the skin. It’s a physical problem that can be relieved by carefully removing the offending piece of nail. Sometimes, rubbing from the nail may even cause a tiny corn in the area, which needs to be removed too for the pain to go away.
Medications do not fix a physical problem like this. Painkillers will help relieve your pain temporarily, but the issue remains, so the pain will come back. Antibiotics can help manage any infection present in the area, or help prevent an infection, but they do not solve the problem of the nail being lodged in the skin. Other medications, like those that bring swelling down, can help give you some relief from the pain by reducing the swelling at your toe. Again, it doesn’t fix the problem. By all means, use medications to help get some relief before you’re able to get proper help, but don’t expect the problem to be fixed and always see your podiatrist as soon as you can.
6. Don’t Let Your Feet Stay In A Damp, Moist Environment
As ingrown toenails occur when a piece of nail pierces the skin, this break in the skin is vulnerable to infection. Bacteria and fungus breed best in dark, warm and moist environments. So don’t leave your feet in these conditions while you have an active ingrown toenail. Dry your feet well and let them breathe.
7. Don’t Attempt ‘Bathroom Surgery’
Finally, don’t try bathroom surgery at home – meaning digging deep into your ingrown toenail while your toe bleeds or you’re in agony. As podiatrists that specialise in ingrown toenails, we have years and decades of experience in detecting and removing ingrown nail spicules. They’re often deep and difficult to see – if you can even see them at all. Sometimes they grow softer and more breakable due to the moisture from piercing the skin. Other times they’re accompanied by a small corn that also needs removal. We see a lot more nails go wrong than right with bathroom surgery, and the nail ultimately becomes more complicated to treat once you get into the clinic. So we recommend avoiding this altogether.
Auckland’s Ingrown Toenail Experts
What you should do is to book in with our experienced podiatrist as soon as alert level restrictions allow. Once it is safe to see you according to the government’s recommendations and the advice we receive from the Podiatry Board, we will prioritise getting you in urgently to care for your ingrown nail.
If you need an appointment for an ingrown toenail ASAP, book yours by calling us on 09 523 2333. Email us here if we’re currently not operating due to lockdown restrictions and you want us to contact you ASAP once we can operate.
Does your baby have a red, swollen toe by the side of their toenail? Could it be an ingrown toenail – and do babies even get ingrown toenails?
Yes, they do – and yes, swelling redness and tenderness by the side of the toenail may be an indicator of ingrown toenails in babies. Here’s an example of what happened when we saw an ingrown toenail in a baby that was just over six months old recently.
Assessment – Baby K came in with her mum, who was concerned about her big toe, and suspected an ingrown nail. There was redness and tenderness present by the nail edge of one of her big toes, on one side only. Aside from this area, the rest of the toe was not red or inflamed. Baby K was not sick and had not been unwell, had no fevers in the last months, and didn’t have any other symptoms aside from being more irritable and showing signs of pain when socks or onesies were put on that pushed against the toe.
Baby K’s mum had previously called the Plunket line to rule out any serious issues by the nurse – something we always recommend if you’re worried about anything to do with your child’s health.
Assessing Baby K’s toe, she had all the typical signs of an ingrown toenail that we see in adults, without any signs of infection. We could see the elongated nail disappear beneath the inflamed skin. When nails do this, it can be difficult to remove the nail edge that has penetrated the skin as it can soften or become almost translucent – particularly in young baby nails.
Treatment – treating Baby K’s toe was simple and quickly completed. She sat on mums comforting lap who extended her leg out to us and was given a toy to help distract her. We cleaned the area and used our medical-grade podiatry tools to seamlessly trim across the nail edge where it had disappeared beneath the swollen skin. The clean trim that we made across is something that often goes wrong when trying to trim baby toenails at home, as parents find it difficult to know where the nail ends if they can’t see it. In an effort to be cautious and careful, many do not trim far enough, end up pulling the nail, and leave a sharp edge behind.
Once the trim was made, we removed the small piece of the offending nail away and out of the surrounding skin. We did a quick check to make sure no sharp nail edges were left behind. The effect was instant. Now, when we pushed onto the toe, the reaction from baby K was very different with significantly fewer signs of pain or distress.
We dressed Baby K’s toe with a gentle sterile dressing and we talked her mum through what to look for and how to take care of the toe until the redness went away, which we’d expect to happen in the next day or two. We called two days later to check how baby K was doing – she was great, and the toe had returned to its normal pain-free state.
Are you worried that your baby may have an ingrown toenail?
We have children too – so we know how distressing it is to see your child in pain and feel like there’s nothing you can do to help. If you’re worried, bring your child in to see our experienced podiatry team. We specialise in ingrown toenail care for children of all ages. We have both one-off solutions available like we described here for Baby K, as well as permanent solutions for kids with recurring ingrown toenails.
Book your appointment online by clicking here or call us to make your appointment on 09 523 2333
So you currently have – or have recently had – an ingrown toenail. And now you’ve developed some foot or leg pain. What’s going on and could they be linked?
How Ingrown Toenails Affect Your Feet
First thing’s first: ingrown toenails typically do not cause foot pain. Their pain is usually limited to the toe (often the big toe) that is affected, with the occasional throb radiating out from the toe – but not too far. With that said, ingrown toenails can lead to foot pain by:
Changing the way you walk
When you have an ingrown toenail, you may be changing the way you walk to minimise your pain from your ingrown toenail without even knowing it. This is known as guarding and is the same as walking on the outside of your foot when something is sore on the inside of your foot. As you change the way you walk to avoid or reduce the pain felt from the ingrown toenail, your gait changes, and so does the way your muscles are used with every step. Some muscles will have to work harder, and may become overused. Some areas of your foot may now also be taking on more pressure, and may get sore too.
Before you know it, you’ve got foot pain – and depending on how severe it is, you may need to treat this cause of foot pain too, alongside your ingrown toenail. This is why we always recommend getting your ingrown toenail treated ASAP – and why procedures like a partial nail avulsion that keeps ingrown toenails gone for good are often performed.
Be mindful of infections
If your ingrown toenail has become infected, and the infection is severe enough, it may also be a cause of pain in the foot. In these cases, you’ll likely notice the redness around your toe creeping up the foot. This can get serious quickly – so make sure you see your GP or podiatrist ASAP, there’s a good chance you will need antibiotics to help with the infection and then will need the nail treated quickly.
Could your footwear be the culprit?
We often see tight, narrow-fitting footwear as a culprit of ingrown toenails. This happens as the forefoot is squashed inside the shoe, and the result is that the nail is pushed into the surrounding skin. If this is the case, then it could also be possible that your tight footwear is also responsible for the foot pain you’re experiencing.
If you’re lucky, the problem will be minor and will quickly settle when you stop wearing the shoes. For some, their shoe wear is long enough to do damage to the feet as well as the nails, and they need care to rehabilitate their feet, too. Don’t worry about figuring this out – your podiatrist will help explain this to you and determine what factors caused it.
Our Podiatrists Can Help With Both Ingrown Nails & Foot Pain
The beauty of our clinic here at the Auckland Ingrown Toenail Clinic is that we’re part of Perform Podiatry – Auckland’s leading podiatry clinic. This means that we can not only treat your ingrown toenail – but assess, diagnose and care for your foot pain too.
If you’ve got foot pain after, or at the same time as an ingrown toenail, we can help. Book your appointment online with us here or call us on 09 523 2333.
A few times every year, we see patients who were under the impression that they could fix their ingrown toenail by doing regular Epsom salt baths. They will have usually tried 3-4 baths over a couple of weeks before they book in to see us because their ingrown toenail hasn’t gone away.
This comes as no surprise to us – while Epsom salts may have many benefits, a cure for ingrown toenails is not one of them. Here’s why.
Epsom Salts: What Are They & Do They Do?
Epsom salts are nothing like your regular salt. It is a natural mineral salt containing sulfate and magnesium. While many people talk about the benefits of Epsom salts, they are really talking about the benefits of magnesium, which is thought to help reduce inflammation, help sports performance and recovery, assist in pain relief and reducing muscle soreness, relieve stress, and other similar benefits.
Interestingly, these are the benefits found in some smaller and larger studies looking at magnesium, often ingested, not soaking in it via salt baths., As Epsom salts contain magnesium, it is thought that they may have some of these beneficial effects too – though this is not proven.
Ingrown Toenails: A Quick Overview
An ingrown toenail is one where part of the toenail itself (often a sharp nail spicule) pierces the skin surrounding the toe and grows into it as the nail naturally grows. They are often extremely painful, making wearing shoes that press against the toe very uncomfortable. They can have a range of causes, from poor nail cutting habits to tight footwear to injury to the nail and more.
For more information about ingrown toenails, click here.
Epsom Salts For Ingrown Toenails
To treat an ingrown toenail successfully, and importantly alleviate the pain, the cause of the problem must be fixed. With the cause being that part of the nail has pierced the skin and is growing into it, it is only by removing this piece of nail that the cut in the skin can heal and close.
Unfortunately, an Epsom salt bath does not remove the nail from within the skin. What it may do is help relieve some pain, but this is only a temporary measure. It won’t be long before walking with a nail still piercing into the toe starts giving you discomfort and pain again. This is why Epsom salts are not a cure for ingrown toenails.
What is a cure for ingrown toenails is a partial nail avulsion.
Permanently Correcting Ingrown Toenails
A partial nail avulsion removes the sharp nail spicule that is embedded in the skin, allowing the skin to heal and your pain to go. It is a professional, safe and effective solution and one of the most common procedures carried out in our clinic.
It is a permanent treatment because as well as removing the small piece of nail, we also destroy the nail-growing cells at the base of the nail, meaning your ingrown toenail on that side will not recur.
The Benefits Of A PNA Include:
- The procedure is done simply in-clinic
- The total appointment time typically doesn’t exceed 60 minutes (with the procedure time typically around 20 minutes)
- The procedure is performed under local anaesthetic so is pain-free
- You do not need to take any additional time off work/school following the procedure and can go home immediately
- You do not need any special boots or braces while the toe heals
- The procedure causes very little post-procedure discomfort, however, painkillers can be taken should discomfort arise
- We dress your toe, provide you with a take-home dressing pack and re-dressing instructions
- We monitor your progress to ensure it is healing well
Recovery time is anywhere from two weeks to two months barring any complications such as infection. We provide you with all the dressings, topical antibacterial solutions and ointments, the post-op shoe and aftercare instructions, all tailored individually to your needs.
Ready To Say Goodbye To Your Ingrown Toenail For Good?
Book your appointment with our experienced podiatrists by calling 09 523 2333 or book online here.
