power tools, anasthetic hahaha I laugh in THEIR FACE!
Well, we all know DIY as being a right royal pain in the arse. We think we can do it 'better than the professionals' and cant be arsed/too poor to pay the gazillions 'the professionals'

Back in the summer of 2007, I had a problem...a little/big problem. A problem that was approx 1/2 an inch too big, somewhere it really shouldnt have been. Thats right, I had an ingrowing (big) toe nail.

If any of you have ever been unlucky enough to have one of these you'll know the familiar burning and throbbing that starts out in your big toe, and radiates out to the far side of your foot as you try and walk with the majority of your weight on the side.

Well, sweating like a nun in a Cucumber field, the celing fan doing its best not to cool down the heat in the room and my feet throbbing I was at my lowest. "Right, thats it, fuck it, i've had enough, if the damn docs wont sort my foot out, i'm going to" and with that I went off to collect: nail clippers, scissors, a nail file, a towel, a roll of loo paper, and a box of plasters.

I soaked my foot in a bowl of ice water, and dried it off. In hindsight I should have stopped here and enjoy the blessed relife this gave me, but no...No I didnt.

I started by clipping the small bit of visable nail, so far so good. Now I needed leverage. Taking the nail file and ignoring the huge amount of pain I was in, I positioned the file under the nail and pushed downwards, forcing the nail up a fraction of a millimeter. clip clip. I should have stopped here, but I didnt, No I didnt,

I kept on with this DIY, and when the pain got to much, I soaked my foot in the iced bowl of water, and continued occassionally stopping to mop up the blood.

By now i'm about a 1/3rd of the way down the foot and cursing for all of Mother England. My choices are clear: cut my losses, and hope ive not made things worse, or continue and remember the blessed relief i'm feeling from the top 3rd of my toe.

There wasn't a decision to be made. Im 100% comitted to my cause now despite the state of my once clean white towel now closely resembling...well, a towel that is seriously bloodied, I continued.

Now, Dear Reader, One cannot quite descibe the pain I was in at this point. Every levering action was causing me to clench my teeth, tense my neck, and my eyes to water. Imagine, if you will cutting yourself and pouring a vingar, salt, and nettle mixture of it. Well, thats kinda how it felt with a dull throb to boot.

3/4's of the way down, and im seriously beginning to get worried about the amount of blood loss. Not because i'm a wimp, but i'm pretty sure that removing something which was stopping your blood from spilling out is pretty damn bad. I watch casualty, and I know that if you're losing blood you replace that with more blood. Not having any to hand, I thought sod it and carried on.

Almost there now, and my towel, bed sheet, and the floor is looking a lovely shade of crimson. drip drip drip drip drip. Its becoming easier to cut and eventually, almost 40 mins after I started, I'd finish. The professionals would have done it for free (after an 8 month waiting list on the NHS!)

Right, well, what to do next?

These lots of blood and a massive hole in my toe. Wrapping my foot in the towel I grabbed some cotton wool. Rubbed a bit of antiseptic on the wound (hey, I was being silly enough as it is!) and plastered it up.

Do you know what? It healed! Its absolutly bloody fine!

Its not the first time I dont this...I've done something similar with verucca's!

Click I like this if you think I should retrain as a doctor...or not.
(drain_bamaged, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:03, 19 replies)

Oh dear god
that is the most horrific thing I have ever read.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:08, closed)

Doesn't often happen
But my toes were curling so hard reading that I got cramp
(Super Oaf Petit filous?, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:12, closed)

I had an in-growing toenail too
And I operated on it myself too.
I used a rubber band to restrict the blood flow though, and some iodine solution from the lab to make sure it was properly sterile.

Plus I'd been dissecting the lady-parts out of beetles for a year, so (if I say so myself) I have a very steady hand...

Anyway, I share your pain *click*

If it starts to feel hot (the toe) go see the doctor, you might have an infection.
( Cawl, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:14, closed)

*cleekski*
I did my own too, but I'd only had it a few days so it was nowhere near as bad..... lots of loverly lime green pus though :)
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:21, closed)

Am I the only one that got
"Drip drip drop little april showers" or whatever the song is, stuck in my head after the "drip drip drip drip"?
(Belgaer is, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:30, closed)

I know the feeling
I had a nasty one a few years ago, when I was still living with my parents. I did the "levering it up" part, but sadly it got infected, and swelled up all red and filled with pus. Walking in anything other than flipflops was an impossibility. So I showed my Father (works in jungle a lot of the time, very good at sorting out ailments without going to hospital).

Bad. Idea.

He made me put my foot in a bowl of recently-boiled water, with a load of TCP thrown in, and soak it for 20 mins. Then he picked my foot up, and squeezed on either side of the toe. It was the most painful moment of my life (and I've been run over by a large van). I tried pulling my foot away, but he'd predicted this, and simply held on, still squeezing away. After about 20 seconds (but it felt like hours) the side of my toe seemed to burst out a never-ending torrent of smelly pus. He got out as much gunk as he could, then made me put my toe back in the hot TCP water (closely the second most painful moment of my life), squeezing it every so often to get the TCP into the hole left by the pus. Argh argh argh. I was walking funny for days, and not in a good way.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:31, closed)

It's very satisfying
to get the pus out of an ingrown toenail.

But it's even more satisfying to work in a lab with ready access to liquid nitrogen and use it remove a wart on your finger.

It hurt more than I thought it would have, but the wart soon disappeared. Much better than when I was a lad and used to hack the cores of warts out with sharp scissors.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:37, closed)

Why retrain?

You are obviously qualified already, now can you have a little look at my spine I believe I have a some shrapnel in there from back in Nam.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:37, closed)

Wow...
I, like others, have done a similar bit of DIY, but nowhere near the level of this.

You are officially my hero for the rest of the day!

*clickarama*
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:38, closed)

May I offer some advice...
your toolset sounds just like mine, except I included a rather narrow flat-head screwdriver, for picking, poking and leverage.

Toes seem to be well hard and don't need sterilising (in my experience!).
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 15:45, closed)

I'd like to click this...
...but I really wish it wasn't called an "I like this" button...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 16:01, closed)

ingrown nail removal
I find a Stanley blade and a vise grips much better.
Once you trart the cut with the blade clamp on the grips and a good hard yank should rip the nasty nail free :)
(santoslhalper, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 16:07, closed)

I had the operation to remove one of these
3 times when I was young. the bastards just kept coming back.

These days however, when the bugger starts to hurt again due to the side bit of my nail being vertical (as opposed to the normal horizontal) and growing forward into flesh, I get out the trusty Victorinox, make a careful incision with a blade and wrench the bastard out with the pliers

this has to happen every 4 or 5 months. I can now take any amount of pain in my big toes.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 16:37, closed)

.
I just had the operation done for the first time in February. $800, but seems to be fine so far. Pain-wise it was no walk in the park, but it sounds a lot less painful than your experience. Plus I got to freak out my boss later that day when I walked into his office in a blood-soaked sock*!

I hope mine doesn't go back to the way it was like Vipros' :(

* I was wearing more than just the bloody sock.
(chase, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 16:47, closed)

You know the little bit of skin under your tongue
that holds it in place? I cut through and removed about 15mm of it. I used to go all the way to the end of my tongue and get stuck between my teeth. Much better now though.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 17:10, closed)

Amazing toes
It's amazing how a toe - no matter how badly damaged it is can always heal itself.

Here's some advice for hikers - if you plan on going hiking in the mountains and are giving a new pair of walking-boots a test-run, for goodness sake, make sure you're walking on actual hills. I didn't heed this advice and ended up with a toe-nail that felt loose and had gone completely red. Amazingly enough, my toe repaired itself. Hooray for toes!
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 19:09, closed)

I've tried it both ways
I crunched my toe under the kickstand of my motorbike, bloody stupid thing but done. A few weeks later after I had forgotten all about it my toe starts throbbing. Further inspection revealed a nice red part near the end of the nail on one side. Started digging at it and saw that the nail was cutting into the flesh. Easily sorted says I and did some deft cutting and pulling and eventually pulled the offending bit of nail out. Problem resolved... but was it? was it buggery... the next time it happened I think it held back overnight and while I was asleep thrust deep into my toeflesh. It hurt so bad I didn't want to work on it myself. At the time I was going out with this lovely young thing who's dad was a doctor and mum was a chemist. So the old man does the op on me and the mum gives me a bottle of antibiotics just in case. I watched the whole operation and really all they did was cut up the nail to the nail bed and pull the whole thing out. I think in the hopes that the new nail will grow along the straight and narrow and not be inclined to burrow. The shot of novocaine at the nail bed did stop the pain for a bit (until that wore off, then it throbbed like a big throbbing thing).

Ingrown toenails are a curse on civilization.

L
(Lurkaloid awarded wanking black belt on, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 19:56, closed)

I had 'em (Damn you 80s pointy shoes!)
Both big toes, ingrown toenails on both sides of toe, all through my late childhood and teens. Once a month, I'd cut them out with clippers and tweezers. I don't remember ever hurting except for a few days of tenderness after a particularly bloody removal.

Had surgery on both toes when I was 16. Hurt like a bastard for weeks and had to have on of the toes re-done several months later. And I have huge ugly scars on my toes :(

Left all the other toes alone after the surgery, they haven't gotten any worse thankfully.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Tue 8 Apr 2008, 2:47, closed)

Crazy crazy person....
I've had 2 wedge resections, one Nail avulsion and one permanant avulsion. (That means I had the nail removed, then had to go back a week later to have my nail bed removed, and sealed)

I know how phenomenally annoying they are. To anyone reading this who thinks they have one, GET IT CHECKED OUT!

The doctor should prescribe antibiotics (as most ingrown toenails become infected), and after about 5 days, you can walk almost normally again! It's ace!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 15:37, closed)