Ingrown toenail removal is a common procedure carried out by trained professionals - podiatrists.

It is up to the discretion of these professionals if it is the right step for you, but some reasons why we might remove part of an ingrown toenail are: 

• pain

• infection

• history of severe ingrowing

• or if complications associated with an ingrown toenail are particularly undesired due to a person's overall health or lifestyle (someone with diabetes or an athlete)

Removal of ingrown toenails can be done in a number of ways. Usually, your podiatrist will always try to conservatively manage your ingrown toenail first. Conservatively in healthcare means no surgery and that it is a very minimally invasive procedure.

Conservative management of an ingrown toenail involves gently cutting out the ingrown part of the nail from under the skin flap. This procedure takes about 20 minutes usually and can be a little bit painful at times.

The positives of this treatment is that it provides almost immediate pain relief with the exception of some tenderness in the area. It can also be done quickly and easily in your local clinic with no down time.

For some patients, they attend 2-3 times for this type of treatment and their ingrown toenail does not return.

For others unfortunately, they require a more permanent solution which involves surgery.

Nail surgery is carried out by practitioners trained in the administration of local anaesthetic and removal of part of the nail with a scalpel (all our podiatrists in Peak Podiatry have this training).

This treatment is the same as the conservative, except the toe is completely numb which makes the procedure painless. Numbing the toe allows the podiatrist to cut deep into the nail root, removing far more nail than they'd be able to without anaesthetic.

After removing the nail, the podiatrist applies a chemical called phenol to the part of the skin where the nail has been removed. This chemical should stop the nail from growing back and has a 90% success rate.

This entire process takes about 1 hour. The patient is awake for the surgery and usually has their view of their toe covered by a screen if they would like.

From patient's feedback, we know the most painful part of this procedure is the injection where we administer local anaesthetic.

There is some pain in the days following the surgery, and patients are advised to rest, but there is no significant downtime associated with this procedure for most patients. The surgery itself is painless, patients only feel pressure.

It is important to note that in both the conservative and surgical ingrown toenail removal methods, it is only a small piece of nail that is removed. Not the entire nail.

When fully healed, the nail looks the same as it did before surgery, with the exception that it may be slightly narrower.

Our podiatrists here in Peak Podiatry have an eye for podiatric aesthetics too and know the importance of having pretty toes for those Summer days. In some exceptional cases the entire toenail is removed. This is only on prior agreement with the patient and is only done where necessary.

Overall, ingrown toenails are a very common and manageable podiatric issue. Here in Peak Podiatry we deal with ingrown toenails daily, so suffer no more. Give us a call on 091 734140 or visit peakpodiatry.ie to book your consultation with one of our experts today.

Don't let your toe ruin your flow