Outgrow Toenail
It is easy to outgrow ingrown toenails. Here are some tips on how to outgrow ingrown toenails:
- Cut the toenails straight across, avoiding cutting in round corners or curve corners. It is also best to use sharp nail trimmers and avoid rusty, blunt nail trimmers. Nail trimmers that are not sharp enough will not give clean cut nails.
- Avoid ill fitting shoes. Shoes that are too tight can create pressure between the toenails and the skin, when this happens, the toenails can puncture the skin and cause infection.
- Avoid going to nail salons. Or if this is unavoidable, make sure that the nail salon sanitizes and disinfects all their nail trimmers, nippers, etc. It is easy for infections to spread from one customer to the other if their pedicure or manicure sets are not regularly sanitized and disinfected.
- Use over the counter medications such as Outgrow. This is a topical ointment that can be applied to the ingrown toenail area to help temporarily relieve and ease the pain, but this is cannot heal the ingrown toenail itself.
Outgrow Toenail Treatment
Ingrown nails are easy to outgrow and can easily be healed. Here are some ways to treat an ingrown toenail:
- Surgery. Surgery is the surest way to correct an ingrown toenail. The podiatrists may remove a part of the toenail, the nail bed underneath, and some tissues. Seeking medical help is the best treatment as this is the least painful and the least possible infections to occur. The doctor will also give anesthesia to numb the affected area and will give antibiotics to prevent infections.
- Bathroom surgery. This is the most common thing people try to do once they have an ingrown toenail. They try to remove or cut off the nail piercing through their skin. However, bathroom surgery usually worsens the condition because the area gets infected due to undisinfected nail trimmers. This is also temporary because sooner or later, the nail plate will grow and cause another ingrown toenail.
- Antibiotics. Be it topical or taken orally, it is important to take antibiotics to prevent and stop infections especially if there is already a cut or wound.
- Always clean the surrounding area of the infected toenail.
- Avoid wearing closed shoes and tight foot wear. Wearing tight foot wear can add pressure on the infected area and may even cause it to bleed. Wearing closed shoes may also cause the feet to sweat and worsen the ingrown toenail.
Outgrow Toenail Remedies
Here are some home remedies that help ease the pain caused by ingrown nails:
- Soaking the foot in water with Epsom salt. Epsom salts have antibacterial properties.
- Soaking the foot in water with betadine can also fight off infections.
- Carefully clip off the nail that is piercing the skin. Make sure to avoid cutting of the skin. Always apply alcohol before and after to avoid infections.