Ingrown toe nails can be very painful, and can lead to missed days at work and school due to not being able to walk comfortably. What causes ingrown toe nails?. Well, there are different reasons for ingrown nails taking place. Some of the common reasons include the nail shape and therefore its ability to irritate the nail sulcus down the side of the nail plate. Incorrect cutting of nails is a big cause of ingrown nails. As sometimes cutting the nail may leave a sharp edge that was missed during self care of the nail, that later digs into the skin. Another reason can be shoe wear. Sometimes the shoe will press on the nail and cause the nail to dig into surrounding soft tissue in the toe. Occasionally a bony prominence under the nail bed, or sub-ungual exostoses, will lead to a nail growing in an undesirable direction. At Hip2Toe at our Cairns Podiatry surgery, we are able to carry out a full Hip2Toe nail health examination and assessment, to establish the factors that are leading to your nail growing in.

Other reasons a nail can become ingrown include biomechanical problems that lead to a nail edge being influenced by excessive motion in other joints of the foot. The only way to really establish the degree of influence is to carry out a full Hip2Toe biomechanical examination, to see how much your biomechanics is influencing your walking. Some of the treatments we may carry out after a thorough assessment, examination and diagnosis are:
1. Placing a small packing under the leading edge of the nail plate, to relieve pressure on the nail sulcus.
2. Careful pain free removal of the nail spicule sticking into the skin.
3. Removal of any corns or callous that may have formed directly in the nail sulcus area.
4. Establish the potential for infection being present, and recommend antibiotics if required.
5. Dress the area with appropriate dressings to reduce inflammation in the area.
6. Give an anaesthetic injection to keep area pain free during care of your ingrown nail, only if required.
7. Carry out Hip2Toe foot wear inspection, to establish the presence of shoe involvement. If you require a Hip2Toe professional foot orthotic for further stability of your problem nail, we can carry out full assessment for this.
8. Arrange for follow up visits where Hip2Toe nail training appointments are required, to increase the likelihood of the nail causing further problems in the future.
9. Arrange Hip2Toe Podiatry nail cutting education sessions, to lessen the risk of the nail doing the same thing in the future.
Sometimes full assessment is required, to establish the possible need for Hip2Toe Podiatry Nail Surgery, which is not required in all cases. If such surgery is required, it is done under operating theatre conditions, with a local anaesthetic to anaesthetize the toe, so the procedure will be pain free. We will order x-ray investigations if they are required, for further investigation.

All of our instruments are sterilized to Australian national standards. Please go to our contact page for access to our question page, if you have any further questions, or ring us to make an appointment at our Cairns Podiatry surgery.