Ingrown Toenail...Gnarly

[Tossin' in Memphis]

I have had a repeating ingrown toenail for about 2 years. It has been taken care of in the past with bathroom surgery but this time it has come back with a vengeance. Thankfully, I have insurance that will cover the whole thing so I am having the toenail removed completely and I am starting from scratch. Anybody intimately familiar with this? Oh yeah...it has also gotten infected bigtime....UGH

[Dig It]

Yea, and it was the bathroom surgery that kept making it worse and worse. It eventually got so bad it was infected and was a waterfall of puss but it was only on one side of my big toe. When I went to the doc because I couldn't take it any more, he shot me up with local and cut my toenail right down the middle. I'll tell you, the local was what was gnarly. They took a long ass needle to 3 places on my foot one of which was right in the webbing between the big and the, um.. index toe? Stuck the needle about 1.5 inches into the webbing and had to then move it around squirting as he... you know what... it was great. Simple procedure that took less than 30 minutes and after learning not to fuck with my toenails like that any more it never came back.

[Jeronimo]

Always square your toenails off and wear roomy shoes/socks. I've had 2 surgeries due to ingrowns, both with the 3 needle anesthesia and a different surgery that I don't remember now.

[Steve]

I have always had problems with ingrown toenails till recently. Each time I get a surgery done they put something on the toenail root to keep it from growing into the corners. Seems to have fixed the problem after having each side of each big toe operated on.

[Powdertoast]

What Jeronimo said. But if you get one anyway, early on when you start to feel like you might be getting an ingrown toenail, drain if needed by pulling down and/or squeezing the side of the toe with the problem, pry up the toenail a little where it's painful via whatever you can find, drain further if necessary and put in some Neosporin, and then stuff in a bit of cotton ball. Repeat every day or two, should clear the problem up pretty well in a week or so. Probably the cotton ball is the same kind of thing as what Steve mentioned that they put on the toenail roots. The key to this is getting at it at the latest after it starts getting red and swelling up.

[Jaysus]

For what it is worth, I had a toenail removed and the ingrown toenail came back... though not nearly as bad.

[AciDBatH666]

I'm an expert on this. I used to get ingrown nails ALL the time. And I'm going to tell you how to fix them without doing the at home surgeries. And it'll work. I GUARANTEE IT.
And speaking from experience, on both of my big toes, I've had 2 surgeries to remove the sides permanently. First surgery removed 3 sides, 2nd surgery removed the final side of the toe the decided not to get the first time.

I still get them on my small toes, but it's not as unbearable as when it happens to your big toe.. To fix it? OUTGROW.
It's a chemical. I shit you not. I've been using it for 15 years and only gone thru maybe 2 bottles. My girlfriend is a cutter too. She's constantly doing the nightly surgeries until we started dating and I got her turned on to this stuff. Give it a few days of applying it once or twice... and it'll eliminate the problem.

Outgrow is very hard to find now-adays...
The effective ingredient in Outgrow was tannic acid which made the liquid look brown. The competing toe nail product manufacturers with weak ingredients complained to the FDA about Outgrow's unfair competition.
As a result, (1) Outgrow was required by the FDA to change its name to Outgro, and (2) it was required to remove the tannic acid and begin using the same ineffectual ingredients of other competitors because the tannic acid made for unfair competition against other companies not using it.
This resulted in drastic drops in sales of Outgro because the name was no longer recognized by old customers, and the new product did not accomplish the same results.

I've got 2 bottles of it at home, I'll see if I can find some numbers on it to find out where you can possibly find it online to order it. Because I think I had to order my 2nd bottle of it a few years ago when I couldn't find it locally. Or maybe I got it at Walgreens or CVS. I really can't remember.

[AciDBatH666]

I had the "Outgrow" years ago, and even tho some info that I've found that says the "Outgro" (Minus the 'W') isn't as good, I find it to still work fine for me and my gf.
Check your local Pharmacy for it. It's under $10 and lasts damn near forever. You don't even have to cut yourself up. Just apply it and within a few days it starts to get rid of the problem.