What is it?

Ingrown toenails occur when bacteria gets trapped between your toenail and skin, usually near the borders of the toenail.  This causes a localized infection to occur which results in pain, swelling, redness and increased warmth.  There does appear to be a hereditary component to the development of ingrown toenails but, trauma, improper trimming and poor fitting shoes can contribute to the development as well. 

Treatment

We strongly discourage any treatment at home this can lead to increased infection and ultimately require more treatments to be preformed.   We have the newest techniques to minimize pain and discomfort while your ingrown toenail is treated.  We have treated thousands of ingrown nails and most of our patients have no recovery time after treatment.  We specialized in providing advanced foot and ankle care and recommend you seek a foot and ankle physician to treat this problem.  In addition, we will help provide tools and education to prevent the recurrence of another ingrown nail.

The picture below represents a painful ingrown nail before treatment.   

The picture below represents a ingrown nail having received proper treatment at Issaquah Foot & Ankle Specialists.

This diagram represents how a tiny piece of nail is removed to resolve the infection and pain.  The tiny piece of nail takes less than a minute to remove and most people experience very little discomfort.