About a month or so ago I woke up with a sore toe. It was stiff, swollen, red, and fairly painful. By about 5 o’clock or so it was extremely swollen, very red, and it hurt so bad I couldn’t even walk. So I soaked it in the hottest water I could stand with epsom salt for about two hours and took some pain medicine. Then that night around midnight I looked down and it was still very swollen and painful but now it was white instead of red. I grabbed a needle and poked 3 or 4 holes in it and squeezed. A good bit of white puss came out. When I couldn’t stand to poke anymore holes or squeeze it anymore I swabbed it with alcohol and went to bed. The next day it felt a good bit better. I repeated the poke and squeeze process a couple more times and by the third day it was almost completely back to normal. The only lasting effect seems to be that my toenail is seperated near the back (I believe that area is called the cuticle?) and looks like it might fall off.
Now normally I would chalk this up as a bizarre and isolated incident and forget about it but now it seems to be happening to my other big toe! Does anybody have any idea what might be going on here or how I can prevent this from happening again? Sandal season is coming up and I don’t much fancy walking around sans two big toenails.
FWIW I shower at least once but usually twice a day and I never walk around barefoot. I’m also 99.99% sure this isn’t/wasn’t an ingrown toenail.
Thanks :).