InGrown Toenails: Hi, everyone. I'm Dr Kenny Lin. I am a family physician and associate director of the Lancaster General Hospital Family Medicine Residency, and I blog at Common Sense Family Doctor .
Kenneth W. Lin, MD, MPH
A former colleague once told me that there are few primary care procedures more satisfying for the patient and physician than removing part of an ingrown toenail. I disagree, but I performed this procedure quite a few times during my residency and first few years in practice. The patient would usually have been in pain for days to weeks and have tried soaking their foot or putting wisps of cotton under the ingrown nail edge, without relief. I would draw up a syringe of lidocaine with epinephrine and perform a digital block on the affected toe. After waiting 5-10 minutes for the toe to become numb, I would clean the area, use a nail elevator to push the cuticle off the nail plate, and lift up the lateral edge of the plate. I would then cut the lateral edge with a nail splitter and remove the cut nail fragment with a hemostat. Finally, after an inspection to make sure that I hadn't left any pieces behind, I or my nurse would apply petrolatum gauze and a bandage.
Me: Get a tube of white toothpaste and a piece of soft toilet paper.
Liberally apply the toothpaste around the toe with the ingrown toenail, then wrap the piece of soft toilet paper arouind the outside of the toothpase and put on a sock which covers both and keeps the toothpaste/toilet paper in place and go to sleep for the night.
In the morning, your infected toe will have shrunk back to a normal size and you can see the digging in, ingrown nail, much easier.
Start a cut into the nail, above where the nail is digging into your toe and carefully tear the nail away from the ingrown bit, removing that nail part and the ingrown nail, as well.
Your toe will remain sore for a few days, but having removed the ingrown toenail, you won't have that problem anymore - the methods described above are a lot worse than this simple cure, believe me.