Anyone have a toenail removed?

[Jonathan Chance]

I've been having a long-term problem with my left big toe nail. Ingrown and painful for quite a while. My GP has been treating it but eventually he said "It's been months. Let's see a specialist."

I see the podiatrist today. He looks at it and says something like "Ooh. We're not going to be able to fix that. That nail needs to come off and we'll kill the bed, too."

So apparently I'm having outpatient surgery to remove my toenail then he says he'll put acid on the bed to make sure it doesn't grow back. Ew!

Anyone ever have this done?

Also, I apparently have heel spurs he'd like to take care of. Oh happy day.

[Wonderwall6129]

You're getting a toenail removed because it's ingrown? How ingrown are we talking here? I've done pointe and I get ingrown toenails ALL the time but they're easy to ignore. And will you never have a toenail there again?

[phouka]

A boyfriend of mine had both big toenails removed while we were together. He'd had chronic ingrown toenails. IIRC, he hobbled around for a few days, and then healed up, and never had another complaint. He did not, I should say, have them both removed at the same time. That would be a bad idea.

[Man With a Cat]

My left big toe is nailless. It was one of those nasty fungus things that refused to respond to the antibiotics, so off it came.

Completely pain free, even afterwards. You get a nice local, he wiggled a bit with some pliers, took it off, not nearly as much blood as I expected. Then he soaked it with some kind of acid for several minutes to kill the bed, put a nice band aid on it, told me how to soak it a couple times a day and change the bandage, and I walked out.

I don't remember how long it took to heal, but it wasn't too long.

Now I have some icky looking, wrinkly fairly tough skin there, but I get a 10% discount on pedicures.

[Scarlett67]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Chance

So apparently I'm having outpatient surgery to remove my toenail then he says he'll put acid on the bed to make sure it doesn't grow back. Ew!

I had about 1/3 of one removed. Got the acid. It grew back. Huge pain in the ass -- I had to wear a Band-Aid on it to keep it from snagging, had to buy a special clipper and trim it constantly. It would start to grow back into the main nail and then split off again.

Finally one day I was messing with it and finally just pulled the problem part off altogether. It's now growing back together, for good, I think (hope?). Still have to keep a close eye on it. It's really thick and gross at the seam, but at least it's fairly normal looking if you don't look too close.

And the shot to numb your toe is no picnic. Despite the podiatrist's assurances that he would do a better job than the GP who took it off the first time, that second shot still hurt like a bastard. Worse than any of my kidney stones.

[GusNSpot]

Both my great toe nails have been removed. I have one other that I want gone also. Best thing I ever did. I lived in misery for 18 years listening to all the folks who said to do this and that. Of course my toes never hurt them, just me, all the time... Do what the doc says and don't look back.

YMMV

[Sarahfeena]

Originally Posted by Mr Bus Guy

My left big toe is nailless. It was one of those nasty fungus things that refused to respond to the antibiotics, so off it came.

Completely pain free, even afterwards. You get a nice local, he wiggled a bit with some pliers, took it off, not nearly as much blood as I expected. Then he soaked it with some kind of acid for several minutes to kill the bed, put a nice band aid on it, told me how to soak it a couple times a day and change the bandage, and I walked out.

I don't remember how long it took to heal, but it wasn't too long.

Now I have some icky looking, wrinkly fairly tough skin there, but I get a 10% discount on pedicures.

It didn't grow back? I never heard of that!

My thumbnail fell off after an accident I had...not right away, but it bled underneath most of the nail, and eventually the nail detached and fell off. Before it detached, it hurt like a bitch (the bone was broken, too, so overall it just sucked). After it detached, it didn't hurt at all. Nails grow back in a weird way...they just sort of morph out of the skin underneath. The spot where the nail was gets harder & harder, until the nail is all grown back. This is why I'm surprised that yours never grew back, Mr Bus Guy!

[Queen Tonya]

I've had one big toe done, it was a weird fungusy ingrown mess with a bone (knuckle?) spur underneath it. I'd broken that toe, years ago, and besides hopping about swearing for a good ten minutes figured, eh it's a toe, what can they do for it? Taped it to the next one and eventually it healed, so I thought. The ends of the wee bones in there didn't align correctly, resulted in a spur and the nail started to grow in a triangular teepee shape. Fungus snuck in and it was a gross painful disaster.

Doc took the nail off to get to the bone spur, allowing me a week to heal in between. The nail removal hurt much worse than the bone spur surgery, actually. Doc said to elevate the foot and I didn't pay much attention the first time, so for the spur removal I listened and elevated and it went much better.

The nail eventually regrew all teepee like and stupid, despite months of expensive anti-fungal meds, so it was removed again and this time the acid bed-killing stuff was applied. It's been nearly two years and it's beginning to grow back, it's like some horrific B-movie monster nail.

Good luck, remember to elevate for a couple of days and find out why the heel spurs are there and get the cause fixed instead of just removing them.

[Gatopescado]

Not by choice. I "stubbed" one real bad once racing motorcycles, and it was going to fall off, so I yanked it.

Grew back, good as new. Happened once since. Now my first rule of motorcycle racing: "Clip your toenails".

Its pretty painfull.

[Omegaman]

I had an ingrown fixed. It was all good till I went to drive home. F me runnin'. It was my passenger side big toe and it was a real mother driving with that digit raw after about 20 minutes. Ever try to drive an automatic with two feet? It was almost deadly. They didn't cut it all out, just the edges. IIICCCKK!!! It was bizarre feeling the Doc pull my whole leg to finally let lose just a quarter inch on each side of my nail. Hope this isn't off putting. I regularly perform minor fixes on myself but this was way beyond what I would ever do. BLECHH! Think anesthetic.

[Darth Sensitive]

I had an ingrown big toenail removed in the middle of this summer. Clipped it too short a long time ago, and it had alternately been seeming to heal and get worse until I decided that I didn't want to go to college with it like that.

So I went into the local voodoo hut (CareNow), got it looked at, the doctor said it would have to come out. So he painted me up with iodine, then gave me 4 local anesthetic shots on my right big toe, and I couldn't feel the last one. He came back in ten minutes, started poking the swollen part, which couldn't have happened under normal circumstances without me wincing in pain for the past while, then got out his surgical kit.

He jammed what was essentially a pair of scissors that could also grip (what are those called?) under the nail and spread them, then repeated the process a few times until it was loose. He then pulled it out from the cuticule. It bled for a while, then he bandaged it up. Gave me a perscription for 10 days of 2 a day antibiotics, and tylenol with codeine, and told me to keep it covered with non-stick wound pads over neosporin until the nailbed dried up.

That took a few weeks, but it staid clean. So now, I have no right big toenail, though its started to come back in. It isn't terribly attractive, so I keep it covered if I think ahead that I'll be wearing open toed shoes, but it isn't needed for the toe.

The doctor said it should take about 6 months for it to come in fully, and I got it done just before Independence Day, so it has about 4 more months left.

[Mosier]

For some reason the local anesthetic didn't work as well for me as other people here. I actually passed out from the pain after he tore my nail out with a set of pliers. It sort of "broke" while he was pulling at it, so he had to dig around for awhile to get all the pieces out.

I don't want to scare you or anything. Apparently this hasn't happened to anyone else here. It grew back very hard and brittle, but it doesn't hurt. It's just a bit ugly.

[Beware of Doug]

An old girlfriend had 9 1/2 toes as a result of surgery to correct an infected ingrown as a child. The half-a-big toe was strangely cute (to me).

I've had both (fungal) big nails cut back to growth line twice by a podiatrist. One grew back with a ridge under the cuticle, which was a total bitch. If that happens again I might get the bed kill done.

[kelly5078]

I had an ingrown toenail when I was a teenager. Doctors kept cutting it back; one even went at it with an electric scalpel. It kept growing back ingrown. Finally, after five or six years of this, they removed the bed for about 1/5 of the nail. I've never had a problem since. I don't know why they didn't go for it earlier, as it was no big deal.

My son had the same problem. I had part of his nail bed removed within about a year; no sense putting him through what I went through. He's had no problems since, either.

I can't imagine why anybody would say the whole nail should be removed, though. That's just crazy talk. Tell them to stick it.

[Rick]

I had one big toenail traumatically removed. I had a fire door in a floor fall and land across my big toe. This was about the second worst pain I have ever had. The company made me fill out the accident forms before they sent me to the local doc in the box.
By the time I got there, my nail was black from the blood under it.
When they drilled the nail (actually melted it with a red hot paper clip) the blood landed on the ceiling. Boy it felt good to relieve that pressure.
A day or so later the nail fell off by itself. It grew back with no pain that I recall.

[thirdwarning]

My husband has no nail on his left big toe. He had an ingrown toenail that gave him a lot of trouble, so the doctor finally removed it. He says it didn't hurt, but he could hear the grating when the doctor cut into it to take it out. The nail area was covered with (he says) goat skin, and now it's a nice, fairly smooth surfacethat just looks like skin. It's never given him trouble since. I'm only going by what I've heard from him over the years, since this was before my time.

[lawoot]

I had a half-nail removed when I was in college - and it was done by the college health service. Big mistake. The doctor gave me the shot, then was called away. By the time he came back the shot had pretty much worn off. Oy.

It grew back badly, and my family GP removed it. Gave me the shot, sat and chatted with me, and removed it before I realized he had done so. THAT was a good experience.

[minor7flat5]

I'm a runner, and occasionally when I buy new shoes and do a few 10-12mi runs, my big toenails turn purple and eventually fall off. It's just part of the running experience.

Of course, I documented the process with pictures (if you are one of those folks who watch botfly larva removal videos on YouTube, then this is for you).
Before peeling, during peeling, and completely off.

[rhythmonly]

I have a partial nail on one of my big toes. After years of ingrown toe nails, the podiatrist peeled the skin back at the base of the nail, scraped the root out on each side, then stiched the skin back.

I now sport a verticle nail strip right in the middle of my toe. Grows at the top; not on the sides.

Mullet toe?!?

Band name?!?

[cher3]

My husband had both big toenails done a number of years ago. The podiatrist just killed off a narrow strip on each side of the nails, so they grew back looking normal, they just don't extend to the sides as far as they used to. He had a terrible time for a couple of weeks while they were growing back, though. However, it sounds like that isn't necessarily typical.

[Revenant Threshold]

My own experience matches cher3's husband, though I didn't have a terrible time afterwards. Just a very weird feeling. Well worth getting done, though.