An ingrown toenail affects a small part of your body but can cause significant pain, particularly when the sharp, curved outer nail edge starts piercing the skin. This typically happens in the big toe.
If you have an ingrown toenail, you’re in good company — about 20% of people will experience one.
While some cases respond to home remedies, others don’t. That’s when expert treatment makes all the difference. At the Foot & Ankle Clinic of MidFlorida, Dr. Paul Ebanks offers innovative, successful treatments for patients coping with ingrown toenails and many other foot conditions.
Read on to find out more about ingrown toenails and whether yours may need professional care.
Ingrown toenails develop for several reasons, including having a naturally curved toenail shape or a structural issue in your foot.
Your habits can also cause ingrown toenails. Examples include wearing ill-fitting shoes, cutting your toenails too short, and trimming them at an angle rather than straight across.
Finally, a fungal infection can set you up for an ingrown toenail, as can a traumatic injury to the toe, like when you stub it badly.
When your ingrown toenail starts developing, you might experience:
A home remedy may help prevent the symptoms from escalating.
Some people use a bit of cotton or dental floss to slip under the nail to lift it, so the pressure is taken off the skin. This helps “train” the nail so it doesn’t continue growing into the skin.
Soaking your feet in warm soapy water for about 20 minutes, several times a day, can also help ease symptoms, as can applying petroleum jelly to the painful area and putting a bandage over it. Even using an over-the-counter pain reliever can help.
An ingrown toenail can turn scary when infection sets in. At that point, you may notice:
An ingrown toenail can cause either a fungal or bacterial infection, but one of the most serious infections it can cause is MRSA, a drug-resistant staph infection. MRSA lives on the skin and can spread to your bone. Treatment involves weeks of intravenous antibiotics or even surgery.
Difficult-to-treat infections like MRSA can also lead to gangrene, or tissue death. Treatment for this involves surgical removal of dead tissue.
For more serious ingrown toenail cases, Dr. Ebanks can perform a procedure called a partial nail plate avulsion, where he numbs the targeted treatment area and removes the part of your nail that is digging into your skin and causing the infection.
Should you acquire a bacterial infection because of your ingrown toenail, he prescribes an effective antibiotic to knock out the infection.
After treatment, be sure to prevent an ingrown toenail in the future by wearing shoes and socks that give your toes plenty of room, keeping your nails trimmed properly — always remember to cut straight across — and keep your feet squeaky clean.
Dr. Ebanks is eager to treat your ingrown toenail so you can get back to a pain-free, fully active life.
Contact our office in Sebring at 863-382-1570 to schedule an appointment with us, or reach through our website.
