Ingrowing toe nails can be very painful, they can be caused by ill fitting shoes, trauma, poor nail cutting technique or the shape of the nail (hereditary factors).
Generally treatment is of a conservative nature where the offending nail “spike” that is digging into the skin is removed as gently and painlessly as possible.
In some cases this is not always possible to achieve due to the build up of granulation tissue, the presence of bacterial infection, the sensitivity of the toe and the accessibility of the nail spike. In these cases nail surgery is an option where either all or part of the nail is removed under local anaesthetic, then a strong acid (phenol) is applied to the nail bed to prevent the nail from growing back. This is generally a last resort but very often a long term solution to problematic and recurring ingrowing nails.
