1 Foot 2 Foot

Ingrown Toenails are a very common and painful condition when the edge or border of the nail grows down and into the skin fold. The skin fold can also thicken and grow up onto the nail border.

Fortunately, the doctors here at 1Foot 2Foot enjoy treating and removing ingrown toenails! You may think that this sounds funny, but when you suffer from a painful ingrown toenail, we can quickly become your favorite person that day. Dr. Dairman has successfully performed over 1000 ingrown toenail corrections since opening 1Foot 2Foot in 2006.

Ingrown toenails are caused by deformity of the nail that is then irritated by tight shoes or hosiery, hereditary factors and in some cases, trauma to the nail. Symptoms are mostly redness and pain with pressure from shoes. If the nail becomes infected, there can be drainage of yellowish fluid or pus, malodor, and redness surrounding most of the toe. Cutting out the corner or spicule of the ingrown nail does not solve the problem in a permanent fashion. Additionally, the old wives-tale of cutting a “V” in the middle of the toenail does not help and can actually hurt the toenail problem.

Ingrown toenails can be compared to common dandelions in many ways. Thinking of your present problem in this fashion will help you to understand our treatment. If you were to walk into your front yard and pull a dandelion off at the grass line, the dandelion returns because you haven’t removed the root of the dandelion. Using a chemical weed killer on the root will rid your lawn of the dandelion in most cases. We do the same thing with the toenail root; we destroy part of it so it never bothers you again. When the toe is traumatized a small amount of root can migrate on the side of the toe. Wherever there is root there will be toenail so then part of your nail begins to grow further down the side of your toe into your skin. The nail then acts like a foreign object causing an infection in your toe.

The treatment of ingrown toenails is performed right in our office typically on the same day as the initial appointment thus saving each guest time and money. Treatment can be temporary or permanent based on your individual needs and presentation. Each procedure is performed under local anesthesia and only to affected portion of nail is removed. Our experience has shown permanent correction to be 90-95% successful. In most cases these procedures involve little or no discomfort. You may walk on the foot immediately following the procedure, and time off form work or play is not needed. If you have pain then you can take Tylenol as recommended on the bottle; however, most people have little to no pain.

Daily Ingrown Toenail Aftercare

Step 1. Leave the dressing the doctor placed on your toe until the following morning.
Step 2. Remove the dressing and shower, wash with Technicare Scrub or liquid Dial soap
Step 3. Dry.
Step 4. Apply Amerigel and a band-aid and leave on until the next day. If you didn’t choose the Amerigel option, then soak your foot in warm Epsom salt water for 10 minutes 2 times a day. The recipe for the Epsom salt water solution is 4 tbs. Epsom salt per quart of warm water.