There are a wide variety of foot problems that people suffer every day. Fungi, foot pain, spurs, and warts are some of the more common ones that require toenail fungus treatment. These problems tend to draw a lot of attention, but one issue is usually ignored, often to the person’s detriment: the ingrown toenail.
Happening entirely by accident, its initial appearance might not seem problematic. It’s just a bit of nail growing the wrong way. It doesn’t seem so bad. However, if left unchecked, it’s the complete opposite, requiring medicine and proper treatment to prevent the infection from worsening.
Luckily, ingrown toenails are not painful to treat. Plenty of podiatry clinics in Singapore can handle your ingrown toenail, especially if the problem is caught early enough. It’s all in the matter of finding the symptoms and treatment before it worsens.
Signs of an ingrown toenail
Plenty of things can cause an ingrown toenail. Any injury or pressure on your foot can warp the nail and cause it to dig into your skin. Nails cut the wrong way can also grow the wrong way and curve into the skin. Even your foot structure can leave you prone to having an ingrown toenail.
You’ll know you have if you have any pain along the edge of your toes, specifically where the nail grows into the skin. Inflamed red tissue along the nail bed and pain in the afflicted area are all signs of an ingrown toenail. Particularly bad cases can even have infections, swelling, and pus.
Home treatment of ingrown toenails
There are several ways of treating your ingrown toenail. Some are home remedies designed to alleviate pain. Others are preventive measures to reduce the chances of it happening.
Things such as wearing looser shoes, keeping your toe clean, and cutting your nails can help prevent ingrown toenails. Direct treatments such as cleaning the afflicted area and soaking your toe in salt help stop the infection from worsening. Pain relievers can also help if the disease is terrible.
There are some cases wherein home treatment of the ingrown toenail can also work. If caught early enough, cutting part of the skin out and filing the nail down can prevent it from growing worse.
Professional treatment
Once an ingrown toenail has worsened, the only course of action left is to have it checked by a doctor. Podiatry clinics specialize in foot treatment and are equipped to deal with ingrown toenails.
Your doctor can prescribe you the proper antibiotics to take if there is an infection. If caught early enough, the toenail can be saved by tailoring its growth outwards instead of inwards. Otherwise, partial removal of the nail might be necessary.
In all cases, it’s best for sufferers of ingrown toenails to have a checkup as soon as possible. Not only can you still save your nail, but you might also be able to avoid a lot of the complications that come with it.
Avoid ingrown toenails if you can. If you can’t, get it fixed as soon as possible.
