This article was medically reviewed by Sarah Gehrke, RN, MS. Sarah Gehrke is a Registered Nurse and Licensed Massage Therapist in Texas. Sarah has over 10 years of experience teaching and practicing phlebotomy and intravenous (IV) therapy using physical, psychological, and emotional support. She received her Massage Therapist License from the Amarillo Massage Therapy Institute in 2008 and a M.S. in Nursing from the University of Phoenix in 2013.
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An ingrown toenail can be painful and unpleasant. However, there are things you can do to stop your toenail from growing into your skin. Doing so may even prevent you from having to get surgery to remove the ingrown toenail! Just make sure that your ingrown toenail is not infected by checking for warmth, pus, redness, and swelling. If you notice any of these signs of infection, see a doctor.
Ingrown Toenail Treatment: Powerful Home Remedies
This article was medically reviewed by Sarah Gehrke, RN, MS. Sarah Gehrke is a Registered Nurse and Licensed Massage Therapist in Texas. Sarah has over 10 years of experience teaching and practicing phlebotomy and intravenous (IV) therapy using physical, psychological, and emotional support. She received her Massage Therapist License from the Amarillo Massage Therapy Institute in 2008 and a M.S. in Nursing from the University of Phoenix in 2013. This article has been viewed 5, 389, 708 times.
If you have an ingrown toenail, soak your foot in a mixture of cool to warm water and Epsom salt for 15-30 minutes twice a day. This will soften the toenail and help prevent the ingrown nail from becoming infected. Lift the corner of your toenail with a pair of disinfected tweezers and place a small amount of cotton beneath the nail to keep it from growing into your skin. Replace the cotton daily. However, if the nail bed is swollen or red, you should see your doctor in case of an infection. Keep reading for tips from our medical reviewer on natural remedies that may help, like using tea tree oil.Ingrown toenail can be classified into 3 stages. Stage 1 is characterised by pain and inflammation. Stage 2 is essentially stage 1 with infection. Stage 3 is stage 2 with lateral nail fold hypertrophy [
Patients seek treatment when become symptomatic. Treatments options vary depending on the severity of the condition, previous treatment, frequency of recurrence and the healthcare provider expertise. Various surgical and non-surgical treatments have been advocated but there is a lack of evidence-based hierarchical indications for these treatments [
Easing The Pain Of Ingrown Toenails, Pt. 1
]. General hygienic measures are essential for successful treatment whether surgical or non surgical. They are also important in reducing the risk of infection and recurrence following surgery [
The main principle of non-operative treatments is to prevent any physical contact between the nail edge and its nail fold. This will reduce the pressure in the surrounding soft tissue to allow for the inflammation and pain to settle down.
Cotton wool pledgets or wisps can be placed underneath the ingrown nail edge (Fig. 48.2). Senapati described their technique, which involved cutting the nail straight across, placing a small piece of cotton wool under the free corner of the nail and cauterising the granulation tissue with a silver nitrate stick. They quoted a success rate of 79 % at mean of 23.7 weeks follow up [
Ways To Easily Treat An Ingrown Toenail: North Star Foot & Ankle Associates: Podiatry
]. Connolly and Fitzgerald used cotton wool pledgets in children with 72 % success rate at mean of 2.5 years follow up [
Toe taping is another alternative, where an elastic adhesive tape is used to pull the affected nail fold away from the lateral nail edge. It may take away the pain instantly. However, the symptoms can easily recur if the taping treatment is discontinued early. The usual length of time for this treatment is around 2 months. The success rate of this technique was reported to be less than 50 % [
Splints such as gutter or resin splints have been described in the literature. They are affixed to the nail edge and this allows the nail edge to grow over the nail fold. Hence, the treatment sometimes takes several months to complete [
Diagnosis And Treatment For Ingrown Toenail
] in their short-term study. They claimed that its application is simple. The alloy has a hook at each end, which hold onto the nail edge keeping it away from the nail fold. In 24 patients (31 nails) who were treated with these alloys the recurrence rate for stage 1, 2 and 3 was 22.2 %, 33.3 % and 14.2 % respectively. One patient lost his nail. They claimed that they are simple to apply; they cause no deformity and patients have high satisfaction.
Several surgical techniques have been described in the literature to treat ingrown toenails. This indicates that none of these techniques is clearly more successful than others. Newer techniques keep coming and rarely bring substantive progress [
The nail fold can be excised without disturbing the nail and its matrix. Several techniques have been described with slight modification regarding the size, the direction of the incision and the amount of soft tissue excised [
Ingrown Toenail Treatment
]. The reported short term results are good however the long term results are often missing. A study in 50 children reported no recurrence with very high patient satisfaction [
]. Potential complications in this technique are bleeding, nail deformity, and excessive granulation tissue. In another study, authors reported excellent short term results in 23 patients who were treated with foldplasty with no recurrences or severe complications over 12 months follow up period (Fig. 48.4).
]. That is why the nail matrix is normally either excised or chemically destroyed with either phenol or sodium hydroxide (corrosive base) as well. This is also known as matricectomy.
When Does An Ingrown Toenail Require A Visit To Your Podiatrist?
] has been promoted as the last resort treatment for patients with significant morbidity associated with ingrown toe nail. However, the reported recurrence rates with total nail ablation are high (18–60 %) undermining the reasoning for the indication [
] and subsequently underwent several modifications. The most common modification in use is the wedge resection (Fig. 48.5). The nail plate edge is trimmed by about 2 mm and the matrix is destroyed surgically using a curette or blade. The reported recurrence rate varied from 16 % to 30 % [
Physical and chemical cauterisations have been used to further ensure complete destruction of the matrix and reduce the risk of recurrence. The addition of [
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]. Phenol is widely used in practice compared to sodium hydroxide and both have good comparable results compared to matrix excision only [
]. Bostanci et al. reviewed these two chemical agents in their patients and found that sodium hydroxide causes less postoperative morbidity and provides faster recovery [
In the previous sections we presented the most commonly used treatments (surgical and non surgical) for ingrown toenails with brief description, pros and cons. In a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis published by Cochrane library, Eekhof et al. compared the outcomes of these treatments [
Ingrown Toenail Treatments
]. Twenty-four randomised controlled trials were included with a total of 2826 participants. Five studies investigated various non surgical treatments and 19 studied surgical treatments. Recurrence rate was the commonest outcome used. They found surgical treatments in general were superior to non surgical ones in term of recurrence rates (13 % versus 32 % respectively). The use of chemical ablation seems to reduce the recurrences rates regardless the surgical interventions although the comparatives varied. The crude recurrence rates were 20 % in wedge resection alone. The addition of chemical will reduce the recurrence rate to around 11 %. Moreover, wedge excision achieved similar recurrent rate as total avulsion of the nail [An ingrown toenail occurs when the side of the nail grows into the skin around the nail. It can become painful and sometimes become infected.
Ingrown toenails become more common in older people as the nails get thicker with age. They are more likely to become infected in people who have diabetes or circulation problems.
If you have diabetes, nerve damage in your leg or foot, poor blood circulation to your foot or an infection around the nail, see your doctor or podiatrist (a trained therapist who diagnoses and treats foot conditions) immediately.
Remedies To Get Rid Of Ingrown Toenail Pain Naturally
An infected toenail may be treated with antibiotics. Your doctor or podiatrist may need to drain the pus. In severe cases, part or all of nail may need to be removed.
Ingrown toenail (nail pain) experience | myVMC Lydia shares her story of having an ingrown toenail, and how her toenail pain was relieved with a little treatment from her doctor. Read more on myVMC – Virtual Medical Centre website Podiatrist: parents & kids guide | Raising Children Network Your child might see a podiatrist for ingrown toenails, warts, odd-shaped toenails, curly toes and foot pain. Read more about podiatrists. Read more on raisingchildren.net.au website Toenail infection & fingernail infection | Raising Children Network If your child has a toenail infection or fingernail infection, the finger or toe might be red and swollen, and there might be pus. Take your child to
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