So I have an appointment to get this treated next week, I am not getting medical advice here, I only want to know what to expect.
I have this ingrown toenail. It was kind of bothering me when I was in Afghanistan so I had a few beers, got out my Swiss Army knife and made it all better. Actually…while it felt better for a few weeks, you would be surprised to learn that a drunk guy with a pocket knife, working in a poorly lit dirty room in Kabul and with no training in surgery did not ultimately fix the problem.
Now it is much, much worse, and kind of infected. Like I said, I’m going to a podiatrist on Tuesday, what should I expect in way of treatment and recovery time?
Hate to tell you this but I almost posted the following in the “worst pain” thread.
Ingrown, very painful and infected toenail, check. The most painful part of the procedure was when the doctor gave me a shot or two right into my big toe to anesthetize it. Holy crap, did that hurt. “This will sting a little.” Sting, my ass.
Luckily I didn’t feel anything when he dug the ingrown part of my toenail out of my toe and cut about a third of it off lengthwise with shears. I shouldn’t have watched, though.
It took several months for the nail to grow back. I had a bandage and oral antibiotics. IIRC, the fairly uncomfortable pain from the infection was gone within a day of the procedure.
This is a little OT, but when I had a SEVERELY infected root canal in one of my teeth, I was in a ton of pain. When the endodontist had to anesthetize me with the needle, it was extremely painful. I actually almost shed a couple tears trying to hold the pain in and not scream… and the last time I cried in my life due to crippling pain was when was a very young child. I normally take pain well… but I can tell you, ANY sort of infection, when poked or prodded, is going to HURT LIKE HELL. So be prepared. Bring something to squeeze or to bite down on. If your toe is in a lot of pain now, and he has to poke a needle into it… get ready for pain city.
Lots of pain from the numbing needles indeed. Not fun. But the procedure is painless (you’re numb!) and even the healing is not bad. I was fine walking around in no shoes or sandals.
It was hard to try to shower w/o getting the area wet. I sat on my butt in the bathtub with my legs hanging over the side.
However, having suffered from the ingrown toenail most of my life up to that point, I can say that having it removed was the best thing I ever did for myself. Honestly. No more infections, no more digging it out, no more pain.
I recommended the surgery to my best friend, who also suffered from an ingrown toenail, and he had it done and agreed that it was the best thing he’d ever done for himself.
They kill the root. There’s nothing for the nail to grow back from.
You ever separate a plant, like a tall grass or a daisy? It starts off [ yay wide ] and you have to physically kill the roots in the areas you no longer want it to grow in. Kill those roots and the plants above them, and the plant becomes [yaywide]
Hey, I’ve been treated for an ingrown within the month. It’s not a big deal, and it was heaven to get it fixed.
It had been oozing blood for a month and I’d been digging it out every few days to stop the pain (using ibuprophen and toothache gel to make the procedure bearable), but it began growing proud flesh across the top of the nail, so I gave up and called the foot guy.
I was worried it would need surgery in a sterile environment, but pretty much the first thing he said was, “Let’s get that cleared up today.”
He offered the option of cutting off the proud flesh and cleaning up the wound, or of making the nail permanently 1/8" narrower by cauterizing some of the root of the toe nail. He recommended the latter as the more reliable solution, and it was only $50 more, so that’s what I chose.
He froze the toe with an ether spray in order to jab it with a big needle. There was hardly any pain. He did some trimming and stuck a thin smooth stick down into the incision to kill a bit of the nail root.
He said that in maybe 2% of the cases the nail root would start growing again. Then he wrapped it and wrote a prescription for generic antibiotics.
It took about 30 minutes and cost about $200. I’ll be going for my follow-up tomorrow, but it seems to be healing up fine.
I had an ingrown toenail that 2-3 home surgeries couldn’t cure. The numbing bit is by far the worst, the guy was so rough that I thought the needle was going to break off. Not that bad in the grand scheme of things though.
I’m happy to report that the nail-killer stuff seems to have worked ideally. I haven’t had an ingrown toenail again nor do I have a weird 1/2 toenail anymore either - toe looks totally normal.
I had ingrowns removed when I was a teen. So, that was close to 25 years ago, I guess. I have no recollection of the procedure being painful, so it’s not the kind that sticks with you. I remember using cheap canvas shoes with the part around the big toes cut open for about a week. One side of one nail has a tiny bit of soft re-growth sometimes, it’s not like the rest of the nail and is easily removed and no problems. They only look different to me, because I remember how they looked when the beds of the nails looked slightly rounded on the sides, where after the removal, they’re stick-straight. No one else notices.
I do this procedure fairly regularly, and I don’t kill off the nail unless the problem has recurred a few times. Usually removing part of the nail, trimming back excess granulation tissue, and letting it grow back naturally will allow it to grow out normally. I’d hate to destroy any of my patients’ future careers as foot models, after all.
Good instruction on patient nail care helps too. Leave a 90 degree corner on your nails! Let them grow out, then cut/file them straight across! Don’t peel it back with your fingers/clippers/whatever, that encourages it to ingrow again.
Ingrown nail removal is pretty mindless. I’d rather do skin biopsies any day.
IMHO, the architecture of the toe/nail/foot may make ingrown toenails a fact of life. I’ve had them since I was a teenager (now in my 50s) and most of my life I’ve gone barefoot, or worn Tevas or other sensible footwear. And as long as I can remember (for decades or so), I’ve adhered to the rule of cutting my toenails straight across and generally maintaining foot hygeine.
But I still routinely have to cut off the sharp little horn of curved nail that’s determined to grow right into my nail bed. In fact, my failure to do so several years ago probably led to the infection and subsequent doctor visit…if I don’t cut the corners off at an angle regularly, they start growing into the skin.
Been there, done that (minus about a decade). A great podiatrist in Falls Church cauterized the worst offender several years ago and all was fine until recently and had to get the sides trimmed down. So far, so good.
madmonk28, be prepared to do a 1:1 distilled vinegar/warm water soak every night for a week or so. With the bandage on.
Genetically I am prone to those as me and my brothers all got them at around the same age in the same toe. The doctor took care of it on an outpatient basis that only took a few minutes (my general practitioner said he could fix it in his office, but I didn’t like him so I went somewhere else).
From what I remember they numb your toe, cut the sides off your toenail where it is growing into the skin, then put some kind of acid on the skin where the nail grows it so that the toenail does not grow into the sides anymore and is narrowed. Problem solved, in and out in 30 minutes. I had it done over a decade ago and have no problems since.
I had an ingrown toenail on my big toe completely removed. The doctor gave me painful shots at the base of my toe to numb some of the pain, then dug out the nail with a scalpel. I’ve suffered broken noses, broken bones, and being dumped, but there is nothing that compared to the pain of a toenail being ripped out of an infected toe. I had the first and only seizure of my life after that operation, which I am certain was triggered by the severe, inescapable pain.
I’ve heard varying reports, to the degree that I think sometimes this is a really simple procedure, and sometimes the doctor goes way the heck down into the nail.
Going way the heck down into the nail? Three things: 1) The shots hurt. A lot. Mine were administered straight down into the top of my toe. Owowowowowoww. 2) Don’t watch. 3) It’s totally worth it.
I’ve had ingrown nails treated now and then. The best podiatrist had a little curtain that he draped between my head and my foot. The shot still hurt like hell, but at least I was able to avoid looking at the procedure…I can never NOT look.
