Ingrown Toenails, and Casey too...

Once you get past the above picture, from here, you may read on.
...If you dare.
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Good Afternoon Everyone!
First and most importantly, I opened the most wonderfilled letter from Casey this morning when I signed on.  She is well.  While I will not share the entire letter- (it is too precious to do so), I will share this much: 
Casey writes: "...we shall spend lots of time together this weekend, now that I'm feeling MUCH better!!!

Thank you for calling the rescue squad on Wednesday, I know I didn't think it was a big deal at the time, but I now realize how bad it was. Especially after hearing that blood sugar reading and now seeing the picture of how I looked laying there on the couch... That must've been scary as hell for you, yet you thought quickly, called 911, and got to the hospital to be there with me..."

My Baby Girl sure ROCKS, doesn't she!

Now, on to my toe. You were warned in my previous blog that this entry would include pictures. It is your choice whether or not to look at them.

What I did not warn you about was my own ineptitude; (ignorance plain and simple).

• I always "thought" I knew what an ingrown toenail was.
  
  • Turns out I was wrong.

• I also "thought" I knew what caused them.
  
  • Turns out I was wrong about that too.
    
    • hehehe Not really...
      

Once upon a time I had a few corns which Dr. Scholl's took care of in a day or two once they became painful.
I have never had bunions. (I have been told I have 'sexy' feet more than a few times). ♥♥♥
As you know, I have been fighting with my own 2 big toenails for the past 2 decades. The top ridge of the nails would cut into the sides as it grew. I would soak them, apply dental numbing product and cut them low- into the sides of the toe, depending upon how far they had grown into the top of my toe.
Every now and again they would still poke out of the top of my toe. (Yeee-ouch)!
While terribly uncomfortable I humored them as I kept them trimmed, painted. Neat.  (Dare I say, my feet were always "Sandal-Ready")?! hehehe

Then along came my bad back.
Caring for my 'tens' presented quite a challenge to say the very least.
I persevered- mostly by neglecting my feet for twice the amount of time I normally did.
The girls had bought me a foot fixer, soaker, heater thing for Christmas one year. I use it a lot. But I still couldn't bend.

Anyway... Back to my ignorance.
(Please do not laugh at me- You may ask me almost anything about pancreatitis, or about the digestive tract, etc; but apparently you could not ask me about my toes).
'Til now that is.  (I thank you Dr. Balfour, for clearing these misconceptions up for me).

#1.
Ingrown toenails do not only affect the top part of the toe.
Ingrown toenails grow sideways, w-i-d-e-r, into the toe. (That's the part I had never known).
That is also why they would never go away, even when I would dig them out, file them, cut level, trim them, and take proper care of them.

#2.
Ingrown toenails are NOT caused by ill-fitting footwear.
They are caused by injuries to the toe.
They are mostly caused by the 'shape' of the underlying bone.
That is to say if your bone is flat, or more square shaped, chances are that you will not experience ingrown toenails, unless your toes have been injured, broken, or otherwise disturbed.
If your bone is round, like mine, your toenail roots will grow accordingly; growing and bending to the shape of the bone.

Since I had finished my antibiotic prescription for Cephalexin, it was time to be rid of the beasts. My back did not allow for me to make my feet easy to look at at this point in time- So forgive the unfiled, and unkempt polish on them.

Furthermore, that is powder on my feet. They are not that scaly or dry!

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Peek a tootsie!
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And from the other side now...
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hehehe
But look at all the metal instruments! Holy great grail! What'd they need all that for?!?

Look again at the above table for a moment...
Just curious, but what would YOU have grabbed???
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Yeah.  Me too.   
hehehe
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I had my b/p checked- Then my temp taken...
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And even a comforting hug from Miss Candy.
She applied lots of beta iodine to my toes, making them really rusty but still flexible.
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Enter the podiatrist... Yikes!  (I changed my mind- wanted to escape).

He was nice.
* One hell of a lot nicer than Jen's oral surgeon. (CLICK for her awful, horrible story).

I was to have both toenails done.
The doctor said no, even as I told him of my anxiety attacks, etc.  He said I would have to reschedule for the other big toe. Well yeah, he wants the office visit call.

After challenging me with his questions of ingrowns, he told me what to expect. This as he massaged my foot. He said he would begin by applying a topical numbing goo. (Medical terms I even understood). Then he had a spray can of freezing stuff. After that he would freeze my toe.

He gooed.
He sprayed.
Then came the poke!
I was expecting him to tell me 'when', but he didn't. Not being able to see through the table, I jumped at the poke. (Goo and spray had left much to be desired).
Then he told me...

He left the room.
Candy remained behind (maybe to make sure I didn't sprint out of there)

He returned about 5 minutes later. I was not froze, so he poked me again. This time he told me 'when' to expect the poke. No problem then.

(This is where your warning kicks in)...


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Note the red fishhook pokie thing on the left of the tray...
That's the top part of the left side of my big toe.

After that was all gone, he applied something to kill the nailbed so that part of my toenail would not return.

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Some kind of acid on the end of that long wooden Q-Tip.
Casey said it went under my skin at least an inch. OUCH! (But I didn't feel it).
You can actually see the ridge under the skin a bit.
The acid remains for 45 seconds, then gets rinsed.

And on to the other side of the toe...
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Know that it only looks bad.
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What looks worse is something that I never thought I would see...

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Both sides removed now...
The dime to give you a sense of how much these bad boys had hurt my toe!
Of how big they really were!

That much GONE... And I still have my normal size toenail! Very cool that!
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Did it hurt as the numbing stuff wore off -only about 10 minutes later?
Sort of. It felt like a darn painful ingrown toenail.

Does it hurt now? Nope, and I only feel it when I put shoes on.

They wrapped it up good (it looked like a fat lollipop); after applying a drain and a whole glob of gentamycin ointment.
I had to leave that all in place for two days, removing it to shower on the 2nd day, which was yesterday.
Then to put more antibiotic ointment on it and rewrap it every day.

I'd better close- High time for my shower -and a rewrapped lollipop!

My love to all.
Have a 'wunnaful' weekend!

XOXO
Me