My name is Marilyn Baker, and I have horrible allergies. I’m 42 years old and have been suffering from allergies since I was a child. I have seasonal and environmental allergies. Allergies plague me year round. When I was young, my parents even moved to a dryer area in the hope of helping me. Over the past eight years, I have done extensive research both through doctors and online. I have managed to come up with some combinations that have helped me a great deal. My allergies aren’t gone, but they have become manageable. I do have to have allergy shots, but I also use some natural remedies. I am happy to be able to share my findings with you here on my blog. I hope you can find some of this of value.
When you look at your toenails, you should be able to see the edges with no swelling or redness around the sides of the nail and with no skin growing over the corners. If you are seeing those things, you may have an ingrown toenail.
Ingrown Toenail
An ingrown toenail happens when your toenail starts to grow into the skin at the side of your nail or the corner of your nail. The ingrown toenail can and often does become nastily infected. If you don't treat it, the infection can get into the bone of your toe and will require more treatment. Usually, by this time, the toe will hurt pretty badly, and most people will have sought treatment. While any nail can become ingrown, it's usually your big toes that are going to have a problem with an ingrown toenail.
Causes
There are several things that could cause an ingrown toenail. One of them is wearing shoes that are too tight and which cause a lot of pressure on the toe. Also, if you tend to cut your toenails very short or don't cut them straight across, you are more likely to end up with an ingrown toenail. If you have done something that injured your toe, that trauma can also cause the unusual growth pattern in your nail.
Treatment
There are a variety of things that you can do to treat an ingrown toenail. One thing you can do is to soak your foot in an epsom salt soak. If you soak your foot in the warm water for a little while each day, it can help to soften the skin so that you can gently start to move it off the nail. It can also help to soothe the pain and can help you deal with the infection. However, if it's really bad, the best thing you can do to treat your ingrown toenail is to go see a podiatrist. They will have more treatments available to you and they can prescribe antibiotics. One thing that they may do is to cut the part of the toenail that is growing into your toe off, leaving you with half a nail. Generally, the skin under your toenail will adjust in a couple of days so it shouldn't be a big problem. Another thing that they may do, especially if you have chronic ingrown toenails, is to remove your toenail altogether and then destroy the nail bed so that the nail just can't grow back.
If you are worried about the way your toenail looks, then you may have an ingrown toenail and you should go see a podiatrist, such as at Laurel Podiatry Associates, LLC, to get it looked at.
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