New toe topic: ingrown toenails

[Guest guest]

I have been reading with interest the thread on the " skin under the toes " . A lot

of good, practical advice and remedies. I haven't tried the black tea one but

that seems like a good idea for a lot of reasons.

At any rate, it made me think that maybe you all had some experience/ideas on

what to do about an intractable ingrown toenail. My son, who has probable CMT (I

was diagnosed genetically and he is " following in my footsteps " in so many ways)

has had a problem with ingrown toenails on the inner side of both of his big

toes.

He does not have hammer toes (yet) but is a big guy. He's only 12 but is almost

6' tall and wears a men's 13 1/2 shoe. He has the classic drop foot gait and

drags his toes and then slaps them down as he walks. (I did point that out to

the orthopod, who does know CMT, and he didn't think orthotics or AFOs were in

order at this point).

I have taken him to a podiatrist for over a year. He did 3 " surgeries " which

consisted of numbing the toe, cutting the side of the nail off all the way to

the nail bed and then smearing the area with a paste that does not allow the

nail to regrow. Each time it came back the same and the only result has been a

more and more narrow nail.

At this point I took him to an orthopedist at Cedars-Sinai who is familiar with

CMT. He was very confident it was an easy fix (and informed us that they don't

do that surgery anymore because it doesn't work -- really?) He pushed alcohol

pads under the nail to encourage it to grow OVER the skin and not into it and

gave antibiotics and recommended epsom salt soaks (as did the podiatrist).

One month later it is just as bad and prone to letting loose and bleeding. The

orthopod put more alcohol pads under the nail and used silver nitrate to

cauterize the new skin growth over the nail, but looked worried.

Any thoughts?

Holli