In-growing toe nail!

This is a disease where by the toe nail grows into the side of the skin leading to pain and infections. This disease mostly affects the big toes, and it can affect either both sides of the toe, or only one side.

The most common symptoms are:

Pain:
The pain is due to the nail constantly irritating the surrounding skin. This irritating pain can be compared to having a stone inside the shoe.

It gradually becomes worse as the nail grows hence affected persons stop putting on closed shoes.

Infection:

When infection sets in, then the affected place produces pus and sometimes a foul smell. The infection further worsens the pain in that, the pain now occurs all the time with or without closed shoes.

What can you do?
Prevention:

Avoid getting nail fungal infections these tend to curve the nails abnormally. ( The most common source is applying old nail polish especially from street pedicurists).

Also, if you naturally have curved nails,
a.  Avoid having overzealous pedicurist who may cut your nail unevenly.

b.  Also do not apply nail polish deep into the grooves

For Mild cases:

If you do have a mild condition (no infection as yet), then, manage the disease by:
1.  Always trimming that particular  nail short (that is, do not allow it to reach the skin)
2.  Avoid wearing closed shoes until the inflamed skin swelling goes down.You may add antibiotics, pain killers, and also soak your feet in salt  water to quicken the reduction in swelling.
3. making sure that if you or your pedicurist can not cut the nail (because of a lot of swelling), then seek medical care.

For Worse cases (Infected nails): 

Seek medical attention. The medical treatment will be a combination of surgery, antibiotics and pain killers.

How the surgery is done is very important; this because most people complain that the in-growing toe nail comes back even after surgery.

Therefore, seek out either General Surgeons or Plastic Surgeons, to carry out the procedure.

Briefly, the surgeon has to cut part of the nail all the way from the root; in so doing, the part of the nail that was entering the skin will never grow back. If the nail is  not cut from the root, the new part will grow back instead.

Finally the cost of this procedure in reputable Health facilities in Uganda will range between 200k and 500k. Also, depending on the company you work for, some insurance cover  for this procedure.

Chao ……

Until next week!