Normally my ten little piggies are painted a lovely shade of red or pink. My two toe rings peek out demurely from my sandals. In other words, my feet don’t look half bad.
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed one of my toenails seemed a bit yellow and was raised a bit from the nail bed. Now, I always put on a coat of clear nail polish before polishing them with a color, so I didn’t think it was stained. Ah well, I thought, I shall take a couple of weeks off from the toenail polish.
It hasn’t gotten better. The whole nail is now a yellowish-white. My other toenails look normal, with the strip of white at the top and the nail bed a healthy pink. The bad nail also noticeably raised from the nail bed. Last night I tried to scrape under it and got bits of a white powdery substance.
I feel rather silly making a doctor’s appointment…after all, it’s one frigging toe nail. Is this something I should worry about? Do the OTC fungus treatments work, or do I have to get a prescription for Lamisil (Somehow, an infection sounds better than fungus. Ewww…I have tiny mushrooms growing under my toenail.) How do you get a fungus/infection? How do you prevent it from occuring again? And can I just forget about it and cover up the discoloration with nail polish, or is my toe going to fall off?
Yes, your toe will fall completely off. Careful, or it will spread throughout your body and parts will fall off at random! (I’m kidding, obviously…but could you imagine? )
I would try an OTC remedy first. It sounds as if you may have noticed it somewhat early on, so it’s worth a shot. I found this site, which may be informative to you. It’s got a few kooky remedy ideas, FYI. Check this site out too, it seems to be a little more straightforward. And there’s nothing to be embarrassed about - they’re quite common.
Personally, I’d see a doctor now before it has a chance to spread. It’ll go away faster that way. Gotta keep those pretty piggies pretty for sandal season!
Good luck!
I assumed from the posters/advertisements that I see in chemists (pharmacies/drug stores???) that it is a very common condition that is quickly healed by proprietary medicines.
On that basis I would just go to a chemist (see above) and ask her.
If it is a nail fungus, over-the-counter nail remedies won’t work. You need a fairly lengthy course of meds.
There is another possibility (and perhaps others that I am not aware of) what you describe also resembles psoriasis when it attacks a nail. If you suffer from psoriasis, this might be the most likely cause. BTW, the next time you scrape stuff from under the nail, keep it in a little vial or container and take it to your dermatologist appointment. It’ll save you time as most dermatologists can check on the spot whether this is caused by a fungus or not.
I am not a doctor, but have experience what you describe, so my advice is to see a dermatologist as soon as you can.
I asked a dermatologist about this once. He strongly recommended against any of the prescription treatments, reasoning that the fungus is largely a cosmetic problem, and the prescription drug treatment takes months, is expensive, and is potentially quite toxic to the liver. Basically, the risk/reward doesn’t add up (unless you have a really advanced case where your foot looks like a harpy’s claw).
The home remedies have the disadvantage that the fungus grows under the nail, so there’s no good way to get the treatment to the source of the problem. (Although the DMSO technique might work – provided you want to fool around with non-FDA approved usage of a powerful solvent.) Then again, most of the topical treatments don’t look like they’d hurt unless you have an objection to smelling like vinegar, Vick’s, or tea tree oil. So maybe give them a try and report back.
Well, I don’t have psoriasis, so I can eliminate that option.
This seems more complicated than I thought. Either the OTC work, or they don’t. Either the prescription drugs work, or they’re very expensive and toxic to the liver.
The first site bittersweet suggested has a bunch of home remedies. I think I’ll try the Hydrogen Peroxide and maybe the Vick’s too. I feel silly calling up the doctor and making an appointment, “My middle right toenail is yellow. 4pm tomorrow? Great!” It seems so trivial. I’m someone who has to be actually vomiting blood before I would even consider calling and telling the boss I might not make it in until noon.
And yet, the H2O2 and the Vick’s may be delaying the inevitable. Yeeessh. Any more advice?
Ivylass, every year around August, I get the world’s worst case of jock rot. It laughs when I whip out the can of Cruex… The doctor usually sets me up with a round of Lamisil, and it not only kills the jock rot, but it cleans up my piggies, too. Never had a problem with it regarding toxicity/side effects.
I’ve tried every home remedy in the book, and they don’t work. What you see is dead fungus, because the action is back at the nail root.
Don’t let people scare you away from the prescriptions. They work.
I have this problem on a few toes (started from just one) and a few years ago my doctor tried some paint-on stuff like nail polish. I tried it for about 6 months with no change (admittedly he did say it could take a year or more) and then stopped.
I’m hesitant to try Lamisil because of the liver risks but Tanookie keeps telling me my toes are nasty (not as bad as that picture) so I’ll probably see what my new doctor says at some point.
I see what Ivylass is getting at about calling the doctor - I’d feel like I was wasting his time just to have ugly toes looked at. Now when the toenail was ingrown and infected that was another matter - that hurt something nasty.
I had good luck with peroxide last year. I had a huge pocket under the big toenail, which had thickened up too. Every day for about two weeks I used a Q-Tip to really push the peroxide as deep as I could without making the area hurt too much. I took the time to make sure the area was really saturated. The pocket stopped growing and started shrinking as the toenail grew out. I clipped the last of the thickened toenail off about 5 or 6 months ago and haven’t had a sign of fungus since. Of course, you may have a different type but as cheap as poeroxide is, it’s worth a try.
I used the Vicks thing and it worked (it was slow but the prescription stuff is slow AND expensive), the secret is to NOT STOP! until the fungus is gone, use the Vicks until you see a black line grow out fron the base of the nail and you trim it off (I assume it’s spores, yuk!) then continue for a few weeks.
I started getting the same thing last year and was reluctant to take the prescription meds because of the possible liver damage associated with them. I did some web searches and found a site that sells a product that’s supposed to be some secret home remedy, yadda, yadda. It was only $20, so I figured what the heck, I’ll try it out. There are (for obvious reasons) no ingredients listed on the bottle, but my husband and I were convinced that it was nothing more than vinegar (though what specific kind, we couldn’t tell you, but probably just plain old white vinegar). Well obviously it wasn’t going to hurt me and on the chance that it really could help, I used it. Lo and behold, it actually worked!
So I just did a quick google search to see if I could find the site again, and the first linked page is all about home remedies, so I clicked it just to see what they suggest. And guess what the first thing on the list was… distilled vinegar! More info on it here, too: http://askwaltstollmd.com/body_fungus.html
I used it twice a day, every day without fail, pushing the cuticle back and making sure it went under the nail, as well, and I now have normal, healthy nails. It’s sure cheap and easy enough to give it a try. Good luck!
Not only do the OTC remedies not work, they can also cause damage to the surrounding skin. I used one product for a year and now 3 of my toes have a wrinkly texture around the nail. I call them my Grandma Toeses.
My mom had success with a diluted solution of liquid Lysol, the kind in the little brown bottle. But I haven’t seen that stuff in years.
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