I jogged a long distance in bad shoes in October, and one of my toenails turned black.
Today, it’s all loose, but it seems like it’s still attached. It looks like there’s a new toenail growing underneath, but the new toenail underneath is all soft and pasty looking. I can see it when I peel the old one partially back.
It smells kind of funky.
I propose getting the exacto knife, toeclippers and a pair of scissors out and cutting away as much of this old toenail and a good portion of the surrounding dead tissue. It’s all old callous and blister and whatnot, so I won’t cut any live flesh.
I think it’s all dead callousy tissue Quad, my man and not gangrenous living flesh. If I just cut the hanging loose dead stuff and cut the toenail off (I can peel it all the way back,) and carefully trim some of the dead callousy stuff, do you think that’s a problem, or should I still see a doctor?
I have no appearance of pain or infection, just dead smelly callous and an old toenail pushing up and peeling off against a new one underneath.
What I want to know is that if I’m really careful and stay away from the living tissue, do I run into any pitfalls. I’ll wrap the whole thing up in neosprin when I’m done.
This doesn’t look to me like a Doctor thing, and I wouldn’t be posting other than the slight smell which I think is just old yucky callous.
I feel pretty confident in the trimming thing, I really do. I know not to peel away the whole callous and dead tissue but just to trim it.
Does the smell represent an alarming thing in and of itself, even if it’s unaccompanied by pain or sign of infection?
I appreciate the advice btw, and I’m not screwing around. I don’t want to waste a Doctor’s time on something this trivial, unless of course that smell may indicate something besides old callous.
I run a lot, and there’s quite an awful lot of old callous there, and as runners do, I have to trim it from time to time, and I’m pretty good about it. The only two new factors are the toenail and the smell. I’ve lost a toenail before when it fell off on its own. I’m pretty sure the smell is old callous but not 100%.
I’m thinking of carefully cutting the old toenail, and doing a normal callous trim and seeing if the smell is still there, or if the flesh looks different underneath, and what I should be looking for.
If you still think this is really stupid, and I should just go see a doctor, then that’s what I’ll do. Sorry about asking again
Scylla old buddy, you’ll probably get away with it just fine, but damned if I’ll go on record as endorsing your proposal.
The smell is probably mostly fungus.
Disinfect your tools ahead of time, soak your toe in water with peroxide or other safe disinfectant first for at least 10 minutes to soften it up nicely, and afterwards paint everything with iodine or mecurochrome or betadine, along with some neosporin, dress it nice for about 24 hours, then cover it as need be. Watch for signs of infection: Redness, increasing pain, foul drainage, etc. Consult a doc for questions. One in real life, preferably.
Note Mods, I am not endorsing his proposal. But if he’s gonna do it anyway, he may as well do it right. And knowing Scylla, he’s gonna do it.
No. I’ll listen to you, if you think it’s a really bad idea.
I’m looking at it a little bit more and manipulating it, and it appears the toenail is completely detached from living tissue. It looks like a glove of callous (or a sleeve more accurately) is holding the toenail in place against the new growth underneath. All that old callous seems like it’s also partially detatched, and can be manipulated independantly from from the toe. I suspect I can snip a little callous and slide the icky callous and old toenail off.
Obviously I hold nobody responsible for anything I do to myself if I proceed, but I really won’t if you tell me I’m being dumb.
Precious little useful information on home surgery in my Harvard’s Guide to Family Medicine. Hmmm. I guess you Docs like to keep the good stuff to yourself, protect the franchise and stuff.
I was wrong. It didn’t quite slide off in one piece. The old toenail was joined to the new toenail near the quick and cuticle part.
I trimmed everything off around the old toenail, and then gradually used the clippers to clip the old toenail down close to where it joined, staying clear of the quick. Then I filed it with an emory board (which I couldn’t sterilize) No blood, no pain and the flesh underneath the old dead flesh isn’t even pink, just pasty looking.
There was some old dried blood underneath the old toenail and some gummy stuff that seemed to be the source of the smell.
The skin and the new toenail underneath the old stuff seems healthy and intact. It doesn’t look like there’s any routes for infection as there’s no puncutres, and no blood and the skin underneath is in good shape.
I’m soaking the toe anyway again, prior to wrapping it in some gauze and neosporin just to be safe.
Sorry I couldn’t walk you thru it, Scylla. I had a nasty cold and went to bed early. Sounds like the operation was a success! Of course the patient doesn’t have to survive for the operation to be a success, that’s just icing on the cake. Or toe jam on the cake.
The biggest danger is sometimes when you pull the old nail off, you can pull off some of the nail bed underneath. Not only is this really painful, but it can often bleeds like stink and can lead to permanent loss of the nail if not properly stitched. I can’t really recommend about trying this at home unless you know your limits and have some help available if things go funky, but I’m glad things worked out.
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