I have an in-grown finger nail on my thumb. The sumbitch hurts like crazy. What should I do? Is there anything at the pharmacy that can help. OUCH!
See a doctor and do not take this as advice.
Is their pus under the surface? You can tell by color and by how squishy the area is. When my husband gets infections along the sides of his nails I take a needle, sterilize it with flame and gently pierce the sack of pus. I force as much pus as I can out and apply peroxide to the area. I then bandage it. Use finger cots (they look like mini condoms) if you need to get it wet as in do the dishes.
If it is just red and the nail is pushing into the nail bed, soak it in peroxide to soften the tissue. Gently clean out from under the nail and around the nail with a clean not to sharp object. The idea is to remove loose dead skin and not pierce the skin. After the dead skin is taken away, take some clean cotton twist it into a soft string and push it under the corner of the nail that is diggin it. It should cushion the sensitive area as the nail grows out.
If the nail seems to be chronically ingrown, see a doctor. Surgery may be needed.
Did you say stick a needle in it?:eek:
I’m a big guy, and as rough as they come. but…
If my wife were to poke this thing with a needle I’d scream like a baby! My God, lee, you’ve just given me something to have nightmares over. If your hubbys in-grown nails hurt as much as mine does, and he let’s you jab it with a needle…he’s one tough hombre!
I think I’ll just leave it alone for a few days and let it heal. We’ll leave the needles in the sewing basket, thank you!
I’m afraid to ask what you do if hubby has a blister or a stye, or a mole!
Peace!
I had that surgery. In fact, I had that surgery SIX TIMES! And it hurts like a sonofabitch! But more on that in a moment…
My doctor told me that ingrown nails are most often caused by improper nail trimming. If you don’t cut cleanly and straight all the way to the edge, you can leave a little point on the corner of the nail that pushes under the skin as the nail grows. Buy a better nail trimmer.
I had ingrown toenails on both big toes. It got infected, the advice of using peroxide to clean and soften the infected area is a good one, my doctor did that several times. But the only way to get rid of an ingrown nail is to cut it out from underneath, and cut away the whole corner of the nail. My doctor did this with a surgical scissors. Imagine the old torture of pushing bamboo shoots under someone’s fingernails, it surely hurts that much. Unfortunately, injecting an anaesthetic into a toe or fingertip is almost as painful as cutting out the corner of a nail. Even more unfortunately, it is very hard to cleanly cut a living nail deep under the quick, so you usually end up with an even worse, deeper ingrown nail. My doctor cut back the corner of my nails twice, it got worse each time. So the ultimate resolution was to cut away the entire side edge of the nail all the way to the root, and kill the root by poking a swab coated with silver nitrate into the root. I had that done to both of my big toes, that whole edge of my nail is not covered by skin, my nails are only held down by skin on two edges instead of three…
So… for GOD sakes, do a GOOD job of trimming your nails! And if it doesn’t grow out, or you can’t trim it out, or it gets worse, see a doctor. Every solution to ingrown nails involves pain. The painful solution only gets worse if you delay treatment.
a blister gets a bandaid unless it is bound to pop anyway, if is bound to pop, pierce it with a sterilized needle and then bandaid it. A sty I pull on the eyelash to release the pus. You don’t always have to pull them all the way out. A tiny skintag < 1mm gets ripped off and cleaned with alcohol bigger ones get tied off with a rubber band until they fall off.
If it is as tender as you say i might not heal without being lanced. If you don’t care to take this step at home and it gets worse or if is full of pus, SEE A DOCTOR. Beware of septicemia, it is possible from untreated infections.
By the way, I apply these remedies to my self as well as to hubby. He screams, alot. I don’t usually.
As someone who suffers chronically with infected ingrown toenails, may I advise you to get yourself to the doctor?
I have had the toenails from both my big toes removed more than once. Did it hurt? Not even close to how bad the ingrown toenails hurt before the surgery! In fact, I did not need to take any of the pain medication prescribed to me after the surgery–there was no pain compared to how I had felt before!
Now, Chas E, does have a point that the injection of a local anesthetic hurts but I am telling you, the pain is nothing compared to the relief you feel when the pain of the ingrown nail is gone and you no longer have to favor that finger/toe/whatever!
Coming from another person with chronically ingrown nails(toenails), and who has gone through the surgery, lemme tell you, IMO, it’s not worth it.
I have very, very, VERY thick nails, and cannot use a typical toenail cutter. I won’t tell you what I use :), but I will tell you I can keep them cut straight…BUT, I never seem to be able to get them that long without having them ingrow, and then I have to dig it out, and then the nail breaks in the corners and I’m back to square 1. LoL!
Also, about the surgery, when they take a half of your nail, it is then fragile along that edge, and mine constantly breaks there.
Keep them clean, try to keep them cut straight and you should be ok.
-Sam
As other posters have pointed out, ingrown nails are a Bad Thing [sup]TM[/sup] I had a rather painful on on my big toe for a while and finally gave up and went to the doctor to have it fixed. Getting a shot in your toe hurts like a bastard, but once it was all over, there was not a smidgen of pain. Now I’m completely anal about cutting my toenails carefully. No way in hell I’m going that again.
I get in-growns on my big toes all the time (at least one a year). Generally, if they do get infected, I can clean them with a liberal amount of hydrogen peroxide (the wonder liquid!) and a bit of brave self-surgery (poking around with a clean item).
Twice, though, I’ve been unsuccessful and had surgery done. Once, the whole nail was removed, and then this past winter I had just a third of the nail removed. It’s done using local anaesthetics, so it doesn’t hurt – at the time. I had my last procedure done on a Friday afternoon, around 1pm, and a few hours later, got in the car for a trip to Philly for the weekend. Fortunately, it was done on my left foot and I drive an automatic, or else I would’ve been screwed. I could barely walk when the novocaine wore off, and I was chomping Advils to no avail. It hurt so bad, but it was worth it because walking on the infected toe wasn’t a barrel of monkeys either. :eek:
Advil?!? When I had the surgery, my doctor gave me Demerol! I had a bicycle outing planned for that afternoon, its a good thing the doctor convinced me that I’d be in serious pain when the anaesthetic wore off, or I’d have been out in the boondocks with no ride home except my bike.
Ingrown toenails are especially pernicious. I had chronic problems for several years, I used to limp around all the time, holding my big toes up because it hurt too much to let them push on the ground. The result is I have distorted feet, I have terrible corns in the middle of my feet from putting too much pressure where it doesn’t belong, and I’m slightly bowlegged and walk funny. Get it fixed sooner rather than later.
Anyway, this is probably more than the guy wanted to know. But we all love to share our personal horror stories, don’t we?
I’m looking at an ingrown toenail right now. My big toe on my right foot. I call him “Fester.”
I first met Fester a few years ago. My foot got ran over at an old job, and the toe burst. :eek: Fester’s never been gone for long since then. I’ve been to the doctor before, all he does is jab and rip around. Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t ever help.
Right now Fester has decided to spread to both sides of the nail. I’m trying to balls up to go get his ass deported. Back to Festonia!
–Tim
When doctors write about The Management of the Ingrown Toenail they write about using a nerve block (it hurts just thinking about it) followed by ripping out either the whole nail or at least one edge and then cauterizing (with, for example, silver nitrate) the nailbed. This is supposed to produce a lasting cure. I don’t know about that but it is a relatively complicated and painful procedure and is therefore likely to be perceived of by the patient as justifying an enormous bill.
When doctors treat their own ingrown nails they do what their grandmother told them to do, they soak the toe in warm water (repeat, water) until it is soft, then work a bit of cotton under the ingrown edge and leave it there until the nail grows out. Percodan is optional.
In my experience, the second procedure works just fine but you can’t bill much for it.
On the topic of “sticking a needle in it” there seems to be some confusion. The only reason to stick a needle into a toe is allow pus to drain. If there is no pus, there is no reason to use a needle. If there is pus, you can speed healing by letting it drain. If there is pus under the nail (for example, if it is tender and green) you can relieve the pain by drilling (not punching) a hole in the nail. (A small brad or a broken paper clip makes a fine drill when rotated back and forth between the thumb and forefinger and the drilling should be nearly pain free.) If there is pus under the skin it can be drained by puncturing the dead skin over it. The dead skin will be yellow and have no nerve endings (think of a ripe zit). If it hurts to stick a needle in it then it isn’t ripe. (Note: It is part of the ritual to “sterilize” the instrument, whether needle or paper clip, but if you think about it, why the heck are you sterilizing something that you are just going to stick into pocket of pus? That makes about as much sense as sterilizing a disposable enema nozzle.)
Yeah, you sterilize the needle so when the patient screams and flinches before you can pierce the pocket of pus and the needle instead punctures non-infected flesh that you don’t introduce any infection. Trust me. The flesh may be your own.
And sometimes you have to go through living flesh to get to the pus if it is in an awkward spot. It can hurt.
But Usually you are correct, the piercing will not hurt, at least not until the patient flinches wildly realizing that his digit is pierced by the dreaded needle and causes the needle to drive way too deep and pierce previously healthy tissue.
OK, lee has already answered, but I must chime in. Generally I nag about moles which follow the ABC guidelines (asymmetrical, bleeding, color (blue or changed)). As for blisters, if they’re gonna pop, I usually pop them first to drain them and bandage them when it’s convenient. He’s never had a stye. I’ve had a stye with an ingrown eyelash, though…and I DON’T recommend my treatment. I took a clean insulin needle (I’m diabetic) and carefully worked it under the skin, and painstakingly got the eyelash out from under the skin. Then I plucked the eyelash, and drained the stye. Did it hurt? You betcha! But I felt a lot better shortly afterwards, and it cleared up in under a day. I wouldn’t advise anyone else to do this, though.
As for skin tags, I generally take a pair of clean cuticle scissors and snip them off. Then I use an astringent on the wound site.
Does anyone know what causes skin tags?
I must warn you, removing large skin tags can cause the site to bleed and bleed and bleed and not want to stop. My husband’s mom once tore one off him that dripped blood so long he finally had to go in and have it cauterized. He tried applying pressure etc. but the bleeding would not stop. If you have sharp enough cuticle nippers, they edges won’t be crushed and bleeding can be profuse! That is why i worked on the tying off method described in another thread.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Lynn Bodoni *
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Some people call skin tags “Friction Tags”. They usually occur when your clothing rubs a certain place on your body over and over.
The solution? Go Naked!