When you have an ingrown toenail, what the hell does the doctor do about it?

Ronaldo7

I have one. And its starting to hurt bad enough now so i have no choice but to go to the doctor dude who will fix it. bleh.

Anyway, whats the procedure?

Have you ever had an ingrown toenail?

Does it hurt getting it removed?

*god damn, i ****ing hate ingrown toenails*(as i look down at my big toe and clench my fist. Mother****er!)

oneweb

Off with the toe!

Mossy Monk

real men rip off the toenail after breakfast

but seriously a friend of mine had to go to hospital because of one

Makaveli

Never had one myself, but I know a couple of people who have and one had to have an operation.
Also afaik his will always grow inwards now, I don't know if they are all like that. He got a smack playing a hurling match or it was stamped on, can't remember now.

gerire

Go to the chiropodist, they numb the toe and then get down and dirty with your toe, best option is to bring a newspaper for the 1/2 hour job, but then again mine was really bad as I let it fester for 2 or more years hoping it would go away.

The Chripodist I went to was on the South Circular Road and she was kinda sexy too, which made it easier.

On a side point why would an attractive female choose a job looking at mainly old peoples feet all day...

/me wanders off thinking ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

mike65

I had one or rather two, both the big toenails kept growing in. Eventually I admited defeat and I went into hospital to have them dealt with (which in my case meant removing the "growth zone" on both sides of the toenails so the nail would keep growing as normal but not along the sides where the problem occures)

Mike.

Exit

Originally posted by gerire
On a side point why would an attractive female choose a job looking at mainly old peoples feet all day...

Eh, cos generally people don't choose careers based on their own looks?

Ronaldo7

****s sake lads this not looking good. Mine is on both corners of my big toe. So its going into the left corner and the right one.

So does it hurt having it done???

*Im actually scared now...but hey im a bitch*

monk

I had two ingrown big toes about 10 years ago, jesus i feel old now, thanks
The Doc wanted to remove both of them and I wasnt too pleased, at this stage I had green pus coming out every day .... not nice as you can imagine, then i began to cut the toenail back at the edges,so rather than have a flat toenail across the top of the toe both sides are about 1/4 - 1/2 inch away from the top of the toe, which means the bits that were causing me grief never get to the bit of skin that was causing the problem.
Now all i do it keep them trimmed and I dont have any grief with them, then again i am just odd
might be worth cutting back the edges of the nail so you end up with a toe nail lookin like this, if u know what i mean.

___
/ \
/ \
| |
| |

Pugsley

I have one, its a real bugger at times, but its pretty reasonable to live with. The way I cut it back in only cut to near the edge where the nail is ingrown and then rip the rest off by hand, means you get REAL far into it (ps: my toe has been left bleeding after this several times, but it works).

btw monk, I take it you meant:

...___
./.......\
/.........\
|.........|
|.........|

?

krattapopov

right i had an ingrown toe nail got infected, had to get the infected part taken off, quite a harmless procedure really

pain in the ass being on anti biotics though

i had successfully fought it off for ages by screwing in a little sliver of cotton woll under the corner of the nail and my toe, hurt putting it in but it was fine after and it always mad it better, until i got my foot stood on at a concert and that pushed it over the edge and resulted in the op

was great watching him cut out pieces of the infected stuff hahahhaha

Ronaldo7

So if there is a bit of puss occassionally from each corner? Does that mean its infected?

krattapopov

So if there is a bit of puss occassionally from each corner? Does that mean its infected?

in my experience yes, but there is varying degrees of infection and nails can still be saved!!

you need to bathe your toe every day, hot salt water is good, clean it thoroughly and then try to shove in that little twisted bit of cotton wool under the nail above the toe, a nail scissors can be used to push it in.

its hard to explain!

Ronan|Raven

Originally posted by Ronaldo7
So if there is a bit of puss occassionally from each corner? Does that mean its infected?

Yes! Goto the doctor and get something to clear the infection up. Sometimes a cream will get red of the infection most times its a course of tablets if it is let go a long time.

Personally I have had my toenail on the left foot (big toe) removed 3 times then the 4th time I got the basterd nuked! Now my right one is growing on but after much sticking cotton wool under the corners and cutting "v's" in the centre of it it is grand. DONT go digging down the sides like exploring moles people it will only make it worse the next time it comes back and one als0 runs the risk of a nasty case of ****ing up the toe/foot!

krattapopov

DONT go digging down the sides like exploring moles people

best advice yet

monk

all i know is that it worked for me, just head to your doc he/she should sort ya out

Ronaldo7

ok will let u know the score. Ill go to the doctor tmro and ****ing get this little prick sorted.

*once again, sorry for excessivly cursing...i just hate doctors and this stuff* :mad: :dunno:

RicardoSmith

Unless its a major job, which is doesn't sound like. Any chiropodist will do this for you, it will take 40 mins and doesn't really hurt at all. Unless you're a complete wimp. Its not a big deal yet. Leave it a while and it will be. The bigger the job the more expensive it will be. So get it sorted now and save yourself some money.

monk

i've a few other little pricks in work I'd like sorted out as well, any chance you can take them to the doc and get them ***fixed***

User45701

Let me tell you a horror story.

Ingrown toenails are some sort of genetic thing with males in my family my dad got loads of them when he was younger and i seem to get a few - most of them i get rid of by myself - BTW doctors say the way i used dosent work but it does.

Neway the story. 1 of my ingrowns was bad so i had to get it removed and the nail groth stem removed (or something like that)

So anyway i totaly forgot about my apointment at 10am, I went out the night before 2 a 18th and i got home at 9am and then it was off to the doctor. Long story short there was so much drink in my blood the that anestatic didnt work properly and it was incredbly painfull. Looking back i should have aranged for another apointment some other day......

Töpher

Between my 2 big toes I've had the nail removed 13 times. That said, once it was actually accidentally torn off by myself as I rolled over in bed one night. Another time the doctor thought I was kicking up a fuss over nothing and just tore it off in the hospital (no anasthetic or nowt), to reveal a huge infection underneath that was so deep they thought it could have infected the bone in my foot. Stupid moron, that hurt like hell! The worst is if its infected badly, they have to hollow out all the infected flesh around the nail too, which leaves it prone to going ingrown again! Bah!
Needless to say, they both look horrible now, one's about 4 or 5 mm thick ffs! Impossible to trim back, and the other only grows partially up the centre and isn't straight. Beautiful. But, they don't hurt now, so thats good, and haven't had one done in about 4 years, so hope they stay ok now!
The procedue doesn't hurt much, but its surprisingly tender to walk on afterwards! :rolleyes: Remember to wash it several times a day in a bucket of salt water or disinfectant and keep the dressings fresh. That said, read waht I said above, 13 times, who am I to be giving advice? Do the opposite to what I just said!

Oh, and if possible, wear a sandal on the foot you have it done on, its less stuffy than a shoe, and less likely to cause an infection (due to heat and sweat in shoes)

mike65

God reading this thread has bought back some memories - mainly of pain and suffering!

Mike.

Victor

I was in the swimming pool and some guy mananged to punch me in the foot while swimming. It was fine for 2-3 weeks until I realised the the nail was actually split and growing into the fleshy side and it had become infected. Two years of trimming and anti-septic fixed it, but in the intervening period the other one started acting up aswell.

Last year the original dodgy toe got a mutant growth, again on the fleshy side. I was pleasently surprised when the chiropodist was able to just trim the toe nail and use silver nitrate to treat the growth. No anastethic, no pain.

b3t4

Go to the chiropodist

Best advice... Chiropodist = foot doctor. Can't see the point in going to an ordinary doctor about it.

I used to get them all the time when I was younger. That was about 10yrs ago now. After quite a few session with the chiropodist and having learnt the way I should properally cut my toe-nails they went away.

A.

Mocking Burd

Defintely go to a Chiropodist - but I would advise getting the infection sorted out first because they can't treat you medically for that.

Just to share my experience....

I had loads of problems about 15 years ago - I was getting constant infections (the doctor wouldn't refer me to have it treated until the infection cleared) - was living in UK too and waiting lists were big). Vicious circle - it kept growing obviously. It got to the stage where my toe would just start bleeding copiously after even walking short distances.
The day someone at work knocked a large screwdriver off a filing cabinet and straight onto my toe was the decider ( I was wearing open-toed sandals). I was home from London on holiday my mother insisted on bringing me to the doctor - he gave me antibiotic powder and sent me on my way. Mother then 'brought' me to the local hospital the following day to casualty and I was scheduled the following week to have the toe operated on. They basically cut down the side that was infected, removed part of the nail, and I then had to go in on a daily basis to have stuff drained out. Not a pleasant experience at all..

...I've never had problems with the toe since.

kmb

Been there done that....Go to a doctor for antibiotic to clear infection and then go to chiroppodist who will cut down side of nail and push in first and then out.Your nail is like a grappling hook so pushing in releases it.I had these for years on both feet on big toe but got 1 root taken out on one side so my nail still grows and covers toe but no ingrown.Other foot i cut nail straight and this helps but if i let it grow to much..ouch.
It was a doctor who took out my nail root so maybe you can enquire locally as it is a small surgical procedure and you will be in and out in 20 minutes.Only pain is getting injection in toe.Then feet up 4 2 or 3 days!!