Ingrown Toenail: The Ugliest Toes in the World

My ingrown toenail saga left me with some of the ugliest toes in the world.

After playing rugby from the age of 11 and having my feet stamped on various times I eventually ended up with ingrown toenails. This would eventually become infected despite my best attempts to keep them clean. The red, swollen skin surrounding the toenail became angry red and eventually turned into a puss-pumping, stinking mess. Gross.

Not only did they look and smell terrible, but they were also very painful to walk with. At times I could feel the nail cutting into the infected flesh at the sides of my toe.

The first attempt at fixing one of the ingrown toenails was at my local GP surgery. It was a time when doctors still carried out minor procedures at their surgeries and after injecting me with anesthetic in both sides of the toe 14 times (which was extremely painful), the doctor placed an elastic tourniquet around my toe and sliced along the edges of the toenail. He then pulled out the offending nails either side and burned the nail-bed with some sort of acid. The release of pain was instant.

Sadly, the toenail would later grow back – wonky and also grow upwards from my toe!

Why Chose Not To Have False Toenails

The choice of whether or not to have false toenails fitted to my toes after the surgery to remove them was pretty easy. A school matron told me that the prosthetic nails would also lead to complications and further infections.