How are Ingrown Toe Nails Formed?
It can start as a nagging, unexplainable feeling on your great toe. That feeling then escalates into a throbbing pain that starts to radiate and can be pretty excruciating if not treated properly. An ingrown toenail, scientifically known as Onychocryptosis, is one the most common nail affliction today.
Ingrown toenails happen when the nail itself grows into the skin, cutting the flesh and can be a serious cause of foot pain. However, ingrown nails do not just affect toenails, but you can also get an ingrown from your fingernails too. It just happens more commonly on your toenails, more specifically the great toe.
The most common cause of an ingrown toenail formation is from cutting the toenails too short. When you cut your toenails to short and too close to the skin, the nail edges usually get covered by the fatty flesh on the sides of the toes and when the nails grow it will eventually find its way to grow by puncturing through the flesh, creating an ingrown.
The outcome could start of as mild throbbing pain, to swelling and redness around the toenail affected. The pain scale can go from 2 to 10 in a matter of days if not given the proper attention.
How can I Treat an Ingrown Toenail at Home?
- Soak the Affected Foot in WARM WATER ONLY 4-5 times a day.
- Wash the Affected Foot with soap and water twice daily.
- Keep your Feet clean and dry at all times.
- Do not wear socks or stockings during this time. Let your feet breathe with a sandal or slipper.
- Do your best to carefully lift up the nail that is digging into your flesh. Place a small rolled piece of gauze or cotton placed under the nail, to keep it from digging in your skin. Keep pushing or elevating that small roll of gauze after soaking your feet. Don’t forget to change the rolled gauze after washing your feet at the end of the day.
- Taking some pain reliever such as Tylenol, may help with the pain.
However, if you see no improvement and your ingrown is getting worse after three days, schedule an appointment with your health practitioner.
How do you get Nail Fungus from an Ingrown Toenail?
You are more susceptible to have nail fungus infection if you have an ingrown toenail. An ingrown toenail breaks your skin and serves as a gateway for fungus to enter your body. Contrary to popular belief, you do not get a fungus solely from poor hygiene. One can get nail fungus from another person; a most likely place is a gym locker room, where the warm and moist environment is a hotspot for fungus breeding ground.
A nail fungus can be in the form of simple toenail discoloration or it can show as an oozing liquid coming out from your ingrown toenail.
What is the Treatment for Ingrown Toenail Fungus?
Application of antifungal topical ointment after doing your foot soaks is one way of getting rid of nail fungus. In any case, it is best that your doctor take a specimen of your fungus so you get the proper treatment either through topical medication, prescription of oral antibiotic or in worse cases, surgery to have the whole nail removed to make the nail fungus treatment more effective.
How do you Prevent yourself from Getting Ingrown Toenail Fungus? And How do you Stop it From Becoming Worse?
- Avoid wearing tight fitting shoes
- Cut or trim your nails straight across, and not too short.
- Be careful and check your nails often when you play soccer or any similar game that includes kicking something
- Wear slippers or flipflops when walking inside a gym locker room. Do not walk barefoot
- Wear 100% cotton socks and change socks as often as possible. Or wear sandals or any open-shoe to let your feet breathe while treating your ingrown toenail fungus
- Douse your feet with antifungal or absorbent powder before donning socks or shoes.
- Keep your feet clean and dry at all times
An ingrown toenail fungus should never be taken for granted. This may cause a severe problem if a diabetic individual has this condition. Infection to the feet may cause gangrene and be a reason for amputation. People who are over 60 and have a weakened immune system can have severe infection from a simple ingrown toenail fungus if not treated medically immediately.
Remember to seek help if your ingrown toenail fungus is causing you severe pain or if it does not show any improvement after three days of doing home self-care.
Kinds and Types of Ingrown Toe Nails
1.Corn and Calluses toenail: These are the thick layers of the skin that are formed due to irritations. It is usually pointed inward with knobbed core and is in cone-shape. An underlying pressure is mounted over the skin and causes acute pain.
They are mainly formed atop or between the gaps of the toes. They are kept pliable due to the formation of moisture in abundance which is developed through sweating of the glands or moisture excreting gland cells. The friction i.e. mounted over the skin surface by environmental commodities such as: rubbing the toe nail or skin of the nail against the shoe etc. is such condition of developing calluses of the feet.
It’s not only the shoe that trouble but stockings and socks that are tight to the feet poses problem to the foot and toe nail is directly affected by it. Pencil-heeled bellies of top notch models or celebrities provides excessive load to the tip or end of the toe nail and helps corn to occur right under.
Crooked and deformed toes due to regularly walking on the hard surface are also the triggering cause for the infection to happen. Due to diabetes in the bloodstream the patient could suffer from foot ulcers. It’s a strong predictor processor of ulceration of the feet.
2.Bunions of the toenail: A painful swelling occurs at the last head of the long metatarsal bone of the feet with large or tiny toe extended from the arch and reaching straight to the arch of the foot and directly connecting the toe bone.
The metatarsal bone jutted out and rubs against the side skin of the shoe. This causes inflammation of the underlying tissues of the skin and becomes acutely painful to the human. With such condition the toe only grows to or increased to a level where it finds an absolute ad accurate angle with liberty of no stoppage whatsoever.
The bunion of the ingrown toe can occur with genetic malfunctioning of the hormonal imbalance or certain injuries to the various joints of the feet or even due to Arthritis; flat feet and gout and ballet dancing performance over the stage. The fluid-filled sacs are inflamed in large numbers under such conditions.
3.Hammertoe of the ingrown toe nail fungus: It’s a permanent deformation of the joint of the toe. Resting on its tip the toe bends up slightly and curls in downward position under hammertoe syndrome. The stiffness is related to hammer as the tendons contracts or make a claw-shaped structure near the adjacent areas of the toe bone with flesh.
If fingers are ill-adjusted inside the shoe and aren’t pushed forward they won’t have sufficient space to lay the toe flat inside the shoe which in return sensibly affects three middle toes of the human foot or feet. If overcrowded burden of bullion is already mounted over the toe nail the condition of hammertoe automatically shall enhance in number.
4.Bursitis of the ingrown toenail: It is just an inflammatory contingency of the foot toe where fluid-filled sacs are inflamed for taking care of toe joints. The frustration due to rubbing of the jutted piece causes bursitis symptom in a patient who is about to contract such disease.
Causes/Risk Factors of Ingrown Toe Nail
* A muscle imbalance of the toe and nearby skin tissues to form ligaments and tendons and those which are unnaturally tight in nature;
* Diabetes; chronic inflammation of the toe tissues and ingested Arthritis of the body becomes the risk factor of ingrown toe nail fungus.
* There is found an abnormal growth with long toes formation of the feet
* With the risk factor of having hammertoe syndrome and toe pad rests to the ground or are misaligned as curled downwards completely;
* There might be poorly fitted and constricting footwear for both men and women;
* The neurological conditions also become the risk factor such as having Muscular dystrophy or Cerebral Palsy
* There is an inappropriate blood circulation problem to reach to the feet efficiently;
* The clipping of the toe nail as the major invitation to the bacterial and infectious agent formation very close to the chapped nail by human-beings;
* Wearing excessively tight shoes that doesn’t allows the toe nails to flatten themselves or even letting feet to gasp fresh breathe of the natural environment; and pressure is mounted on the nail beds
* Unusual Thickened Toe nails due to fungal infections;
* Pounding of the toe finger while sprinting or over-stepping on the toe beds or even stubbing of the toes;
* Improper trimming;
* Genetic disorder of the genes transmitted to next generation with same toe abnormalities
* Collapsing up of arch when weight is bear upon the toe nail;
. Certain exercising errors;
. A flat foot with substantial increase of pressure on the big to joint;
* Footwear with a tapered toe box worsens the point to require surgical procedures and relates itself with the formation of bunions;
* Deformation of the toe structural bones since childhood;
* Pinching up the nerve of the skin in between the toe region by tightness to the region implied;
* Obesity.
Sign and Symptoms of Ingrown Toe nails
* There is an excessive discoloring of nail underneath that usually causes secondary infection of the toenail.
* The long portion of the nail is opaque in nature and is discolored to yellow or green pigment formation of the nail beds.
* There is experienced tenderness and acute pain to both the sides of the toes and nail skin.
* If there is an infection agent caused due to bacterial formation at the toe region the pain could be diverted or separated gradually because the part or portion of that ingrown toe nail is detached thereupon.
* There is red coloring around the skin near the toe nail and forms a ring kind of structure all around the infected region.
* Certain patients have also experienced too much of swelling to the tip or end of the toe nail.
* There occurs a symptom of pus draining from the tip of the toe nail or from the side corners.
* A patient feels warmness at the infected cones due to formation of moisture at te near by regions.
* Unwanted fever could emerge thereupon if the toe nail is ill-treated by the reputed practitioner or medical physician.
* There are minor discomforting of toe nail being misaligned from its regular angle position of the feet and can cause unnecessary pain and swelling with jutted out piece of extra nail to the side corners attached to the skin.
* Inflammation of the toe nail is rather a normal course of symptom for such sort of contingency of the feet and is also common among the physicians or experts who treat such difficulty.
* A red moist lump might overlap the edges of the toe nail making it appear pink in color and inflammation of the toe nail.
* In a normal parlance when ingrown toe nail characterize the disease process trigger it always remain hard in nature no matte what the ski type might be.
* Scaling
* Itching or frustrations near the toe nail area.
* There might be a cracked skin surface and peeling up of skin in the form of flakes.
* Uneven footwear that collapses more at the front portion of the shoe with a condition of flatfeet giving almost no room for the toe nail to breathe fresh air from the atmosphere and causing moist or damp conditions in and around the region.
* There are enormous amount of blisters that occurs at the soles or which happens along at the sides of the feet.
* If there is an ingrown toe nail formation at the tip of the nail and that which comes in contact with the walking ways appears a patient as if he/she is moving along on the surface of the pebbles.
* Weight age due to bad sheets or covers of the bed or duvets on the tip of the toe.
* Bumping of the object on the surface of the toe nail and causing excruciating pain to the tip or end of the toe nail.
* There could cause a sign of watery discharge tinged mixed along with blood.
* A spear shaped wedge happens at the wedge of the nail which is on the lateral side of the toe which progressively enhances and embedded into the toe skin tissue to let the toe grow forward. It grows in a slanting position.
.In the case of foot ulcer if ingrown toe nail is left ill-treated then long enough process of the treatment of the toe nail could trigger a process of Gangrene in and around the specific infected areas of the feet.
.Intravenous treatment is required if the infectious bacterial agent seeps in the bone of the finger reaching the tip of the skin of the toe.
Self Treatments and Preventions of Ingrown Toe Nail from Fungus and Infection
* Try to trim the toe nail following a straight line and do not try to cut to short or small to suffer from acute pain due to infectious agents.
* Do not wear excessively tight shoes or other footwear available in the market because long shoes keeps pressure on the tip or end of the toe nail and troubles while walking or running or jumping. Wear sandals or sleepers.
* Clean the edges and filling or cuts of the toe nails to avoid any bacterial infectious agents to seep in and multiply.
* Apply topical medicines thoroughly all around the opened sections of the skin surrounding the nail as they cure the bacterial infections.
* A podiatrist is a well specialized doctor or pedicure expert that could remove the corners of the toe nail and performs a minor or major surgery to outperform the disease.
* At the time of buying good pedicure products go for nice nail clippers
* Wash the feet that include the infected region and use damp cloth twice a day with soap and water with mild temperature and keep foot dry the entire day.
* Take a tiny piece of cotton and roll it between the nail and skin to form a small wick or roll and then keep the wick between the skin and the toe nail to be left remained elevated. This procedure of pedicure is the ultimate home treatment.
* If the ingrown toe nail fungus is causing excruciating pain at the tip or atop the skin, then a health care professional can lift the edge of the nail from the edge of the skin.
* Let a doctor to insert a needle or a special blade to allow storage of pus to be drained overtime or else pus could take the shape of gangrene of the foot.
* For the re-growth of the nail a vertical strip of the toe nail can be removed by the podiatrist causing an affected side to the patient to walk efficiently. If the growth is still underway then doctor can treat the infected region with a cuticle which is a medicine called “Phenol”. This medicine prevents the area of the cuticle of the toe to produce new nail and makes it narrower as well.
* Do not be scared to give a “V” shaped structure to the toe nail as certain patients have a myth that it could change the structure but in reality the shape and size of the growth of the toe nail is determined by the natural growing area found upon at the base of the toe skin itself or at the end tips as a god-gift.
* Demand an oral antibiotic only if the infection isn’t acute by nature.
