Why Do I Keep Getting These Ingrown Toenails?

=( I abuse the hell out of my poor little toesies. I cut them down to the quick - no cute little V for me. Only time I ever got an ingrown nail is when I was walking around Burro Gap and got some sort of thorn in the inside corner of my right big toe, and being on a road trip had to wear shoes for the next week of getting home. Seems that the thorn left a bit of bacterial nastiness in the corner of the big toe, and it pushed the tissues against the nail, and it got in under the toe=( and kept the nail growing sort of funky so I had to cut and yank that strip out about every 2 weeks. I cut and yanked out a strip of toenail about 2 mm wide, squoze the hell out of it, soaked in serious epsoms salts and went barefoot for the next month [wasn’t working, and it was nice weather outside, late september 89] Healed up after about 6 weeks and never had trouble with it since.

Still cut my nails totally improperly, but I go barefoot most of the time, so I dont have hammer toe, nail fungus, athletes foot, or the funky toenail malformations from being crammed into shoes. I just saw a thing on one of the shopping channels for the pointiest toed shoes in the world, and they looked absolutely painful, like 4 inch heels and absolutely no toe room…I can see a podiatrist making serious cash off the wearers of those little items!

I’ve had many of these beginning at age 12. I’ve had five toes done, most on both sides, and two fingers on both sides. Once my big toe decided to grow a nail downwards at the end of it, and right into the skin before leaving the edge of the toe, but all other instances the sides of my nails grew so far down that they were unreachable. I’d usually have bloody socks from them before taking care of them.
The only solution I’ve ever found is to simply leave all nails as long as my finger tips or toe tips. I can guarentee you that mine were not caused from bad grooming or anything else. The pediatrist simply said it happens to some people for no reason…