Precautionary Steps to Prevent Fungal Toenails

Fungal toenails can be painful, embarrassing and just plain gross. Fungal infections within your toenails can easily spread from the toenails to the skin. They can also infect your entire foot and the rest of your body.

In order to prevent this painful and disgusting condition, please follow our helpful tips:

• Wash and dry your feet. You must wash your feet with soap and water at least twice every day. Dry your feet thoroughly after and don’t forgot to dry between your toes.

• Use anti-fungal and antiperspirant products. Apply an anti-fungal cream to your feet and ankles on a daily basis. You can powder feet, ankles and toes with an antiperspirant to reduce sweating. This will also help keep your feet dry throughout all of your physical activities.

• Do not swap maintenance tools. It is so important to keep up the care of your feet and toes. However, your maintenance tools can easily spread fungal infections if you share. You always want to disinfect tools such as nail clippers, files and pumice stones before and after every use. Never share your tools with others or borrow someone else’s foot care products.

• Keep your socks and shoes to yourself. Just like with maintenance tools, you do not want to borrow socks and shoes. You also do not want to lend out your own. Socks and shoes directly touch your feet and harbor bacteria, especially from perspiration. Make sure to wash your socks after every use.

• Cut your toenails. It may sound simple enough, but this little task can easily be forgotten. Cut your toenails straight across and never curve at the ends. You also want to cut toenails at least once a week or whenever the nail grows past the end of your toe.

Fungal toenails can be extremely difficult to treat and may require permanent removal of the infected nail. For this reason, if you experience a fungal infection in your feet or toenails you want to contact our office immediately. You can call our office at (518)273-0053 to schedule an appointment with Dr. Tejas Pandya. Don’t forget that while fungal nails are treatable, they can always come back! You need to take the proper precautionary steps to prevent reoccurring fungal infections.

References:

http://www.capitaldistrictpodiatry.com/library/1821/FungalNails.html
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/fungal-infections-skin

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