Diagnosis | Pain in the toenail

Diagnosis

The diagnosis of an ingrown toenail can usually be made by the patient himself/herself, since he/she recognizes the ingrown toenail and also has severe pain in the corresponding areas. Nail bed inflammation can also be recognized very well, but the patient cannot diagnose whether it is a bacterial, viral or mycotic nail bed inflammation. Since this decision is important for the further course of treatment, a doctor should be consulted to determine, with the help of smears or blood analyses, which pathogen is responsible for the inflammation of the nail bed, in order to enable an adequate therapy.

Symptoms

In addition to the pain in the toenail, the ingrown toenail also causes redness and swelling in the affected area. In case of a nail bed inflammation, the area around the nail swells strongly, is reddened and in worse cases pus blisters are formed. Light pressure causes severe pain. Bacterial nail bed inflammation can also lead to fever and night sweats, which indicates a more serious course of the disease, which should be treated with antibiotics. In rare cases there is also swelling of the lymph nodes.

Therapy

A therapy for pain in the toenail is essential.It is especially important not to experiment around yourself until you eventually come to a halfway good solution, because in most cases you aggravate the course of the disease and thus the pain in the toenail and hinder the healing instead of supporting it. If you have an ingrown toenail, it is important to get professional help. In this case, one should not seek a pedicure from a beautician, but a trained podiatrist, i.e. medical foot care.

Not only is the ingrown nail removed or worked on, depending on its severity, but the nail is also trimmed so that no further problems should occur afterwards. In addition, a medical podiatrist can give practical tips to prevent a new ingrown toenail and the pain associated with it. If the pain is caused by an inflammation of the nail bed in the toe, the family doctor should be consulted to decide on further therapy.

It is important not to experiment with ointments or tinctures on the toe yourself. In the early stages, one can try to calm the inflammation with foot baths (preferably with chamomile, as this has an anti-inflammatory (antiphlogistic) effect). In addition, ointments that either also have an anti-inflammatory effect or have a disinfectant component, such as povidan iodine, can also help.

Depending on the pathogen, the physician can also prescribe an antibacterial, antiviral or antifungal cream, which then acts specifically against the germ that causes the inflammation. If the patient also has a fever, antibiotics should also be administered to prevent the bacterial inflammation from spreading. In addition, if there are large areas of pus, the doctor should open these and then clean the toe with disinfectants and then cream it with a healing-promoting cream (for example, chamomile) and then bandage it so that no new germs can penetrate the wound. In rare cases, the toenail must be removed, which may initially aggravate the pain in the area of the toenail, but is promising in the long term.