Treatment Options for an Ingrown Toenail
“Hi, my name is Dr. Wachtel and today we’re going to discuss ingrown toenails. Many of our patients come in anywhere from a young child to adolescent as well as elderly – they come in with an inflamed, swollen, red nail with puffiness on the side. These are signs of an ingrown toenail. If you have these signs, I would recommend not trying bathroom surgery, but come in to see someone like me right away.Typically we will numb the toe, sometimes we don’t even have to do that, what we do is called a “slant back”, sometimes we will numb the toe and remove the whole side and let the pus come out.After the infection is healed with soaking instructions which we give to the patient, as well as an antibiotic of some kind, we have the patient come back, evaluate the area, and in a majority of patients, we will provide the patient with a nail procedure after the infection is healed. The nail procedure will remove the ingrown nail, down to the root, and the patient has no pain at the end of the treatment. No ingrown toenail, no more pain.”
