Have you ever had a bruised toenail? Did it heal? This post is going to talk about fungus. Specifically toenail fungus. I wanted to do a post on this to just share what I already know and have been sharing but let this reach more people. Should be titled, How To Recognize Nail Fungus And What To Do And Not Do About It. With this post I am explaining my theory of nail fungus and the best options to recognize and take care of it. I am coming from a space of doing nail services on both hands and feet for over 15 years in 3 different states and in various environments. I want to write about this topic for two reasons: 1) If you are a nail technician and working on clientele with fungus I hope you can feel comfortable to let your client know they have fungus on the nail and give them some tips to help heal it. 2) If you yourself read this article and maybe you or someone you know has fungus on a toenail or fingernail I hope by the end of this post you will realize that nail fungus is no joke and needs to be addressed. Hopefully this post will give you some tips to heal your nail fungus issues or recognize that you may have a fungus issue with your nails.
How the toe and fingernails work
This is my quick explanation, with a little bit of anatomy, of your nail bed. First off if your nail gets damaged on your finger is is usually about 6 months from injury to when the damaged nail will grow back out. On your toenails, the big toe, being it has more surface space will take a little longer than 6 months to grow out and the smaller toenails can take around 3 months to grow out. This is for all bruises, depending how far down it is on the nail and any kind of injuries to a particular nailbed. The second important thing to know is that right at the bottom of your fingernail or toenail at the end of the nail bed is where your nail is formed. If that area of your finger or toe is damaged in any way it can cause your nails to grow out with different shapes a.k.a deformed or not at all.
Example, when I was 14 years old a very large lady wearing high heals stepped on my little second to the big toe with her high heel shoe. Pain!!! Yes! What happened? To this day that toenail grows out deformed. It never has fully recovered from that hit to the nail bed on that toe. This can be something to consider if you have a nail growing out a little different than the others. If you’ve ever had an injury to a finger or toe if may have permanently affected your nail bed.
Starts with a bruise
Just sharing my personal experience here. I have worked and done nail services in 3 different states. I started in the state of Hawaii where most tourist that were traveling there were visiting from Los Angeles or lets say California as that would be the closest hot spot to visit by flight. I was just starting out and new to the field of nails, so of course you learn as you go. Needless to say there were not to many nail problems with my hotel guests or clientele that I was working on. Of course people were visiting from all over the world but the majority of my clientele were from California. Moving on in my career I moved to Florida. For the first time I started seeing fungus on nails. I blame it on the humidity and people do not always wear open toe shoes and flip flops in Florida. California and Hawaii has more open toe weather so I feel that the toe nails are more exposed to fresh air and sunlight. I was also working in a local salon not a resort around this time and it was different clientele. What I noticed especially doing pedicures was toenail fungus. Now how does this happen?
How it started was I would notice a discolored toenail. A lot of times it would be the big toenail. I started asking clients about the discoloration and what happened. I was getting a similar story, I was hiking and then after that the black spot was on my nail. Sometimes it would be, I am a runner and that just appeared and hasn’t gone away. So I started putting it together and came to my own conclusion after working on hundreds of feet and seeing the pattern.
The bruise that doesn’t heal
The pattern starts like this someone goes hiking or running wears a tight shoe and gets a bruised toenail. Sometimes they get a few bruises. Wrong shoes, to tight or sometimes its your movement in the shoes. Running with shoes that don’t fit can be a culprit because people do not realize their shoes are not the right size. More people than not wear the wrong size running shoe or tennis shoe. Same with hiking shoes or boots. This can also happen from wearing tight high heals and shoes that have no give. So the toenail in some sort of way gets weak or damaged causing a discoloration. Some people can get a bruised looking nail and some people’s toenails turn black and look not pretty at all. What can start out as a literal bruise can turn into fungus. How you ask?
This is my theory but speaking from hundreds of accounts, think about it. I’m going to reference toe nails here as this is more common the case. You have your toenail and everything is good. Now you’ve damaged or bruised your toenail in some way and you are not sure how it happened? You just look down one day and the nail is discolored. If it was a, not an easy to heal hit or bruise, the nail may start to bubble or grow out weird. What can happen then? You shower daily. As you shower your toenails are softening due to the water. Now if you nail has changed shape in any way you may be getting water and moisture trapped under that weak bruised nail. Then what happens you get out of the shower and you have excess moisture under that toenail and you are not aware of it. Then you dry off as usual and you put on your socks and shoes. Now what type of climate does fungus grow in? Dark, moist, and warmth are the requirements for fungus growth. What do you think your socks and shoes provide with excess water moisture under that damaged nail?
This is your perfect formula for creating fungus on a toenail and you don’t even know it. By the time you catch it and can visually see it, it can already be a problem. A lot of people do not put it together what is happening and they wait and see. I understand, nobody wants to think they have toenail fungus. You can be the cleanest person, have a nail bruise and think its going to heal and then 3 months later that toenail is still black but you do not know what is going on?
If you don’t put medicine on it fungus will never heal
Then one day you go and get a pedicure from yours truly and I have to break it to you. My advice for nail technicians reading this post. Tell your clients what you think it could be if you think it could be fungus. There is a difference between toenail fungus and bruises but advise them as well. Because to many times I have seen what starts as a bruise, the nail weakens and now they have fungus. So, this is the most important point of this post and why I decided to write about it. People just do not realize you will not heal if you do not address a weak nail that started as a bruise and turned into fungus. If you do not change your habits with your toenails and your feet and you have fungus it will not heal. Fungus Needs Medicine Period. If the shoes that got you into that position are still being used how can you heal?
Now what I do? Trust me I was in some high end five star resorts with clean clients who would not want to be told they have fungus. You need a soft approach but I just softly suggest to the client you know this looks like a bruise but it has taken a long time to heal, you may want to get some medicine for it just to be safe. Then I proceed to explain what I am explaining in this post which is just a suggestion they may be okay but maybe they want to pay a little more attention to see if the nail heals. Note there is also white fungus that can grow on nails. Fungus has various colors that is what can make it so tricky. Common fungus colors I’ve seen growing on the nail bed are, black, brown, green and white.
Tips to heal toenail fungus
(DISCLAIMER: These are tips to heal fungus on the toenail or fingernail. There is no guarantee and some medical advice may contradict these tips. Use these tips by your own free will)
- Anti fungus or tea tree fungus nail product. This usually comes in a dropper form and you can drop on the toe nail up to three times a day. If you just remember once a day your ahead of the game. It has to be addressed daily at least once with the dropper of medicine and can take up to 3 months to heal. A trick, for women who do not want to show their black toenail if you polish with a nail color that covers the nail and then one can drop the medicine around the nail bed. They can still wear sandals and open air shoes which is best for healing and get that medicine on the nail. Sorry guys unless you want to polish your toe nails it wouldn’t be a good tip.
- Open air shoes. Cannot stress enough air those feet out and get sunlight on those toes. If your in a climate and its cold and you have to wear socks. No polyester. Organic cotton or wool socks are best even if you don’t have fungus on your toe nail because your feet can breath better and those are natural fibers. I suggest to clients even if you have to wear close toed shoes for work as soon as you can try and put on flip flops or sandals. Keep them in your car if you can. I’ve even worn the open toe socks with flip flops. Keeps the feet warm but exposes the toes to fresh air.
- Dry your feet well. So many people and trust me I am a culprit of this habit and had to stop myself. When you shower and step out onto the bath mat so many people think there feet are dry. No, take the time to use your bath towel and actually dry your feet and dry in between your toes.
- Use a hair dryer if necessary on your feet. This is a tip I figured out as a was starting to get a little dry cracked skin in between my toes. If you have pealing skin on your feet and in between your toes this too can be a form of fungus, or shall we say pre fungus depending how bad the skin is. This can happen because of a lack in step 3 of drying your feet well. The moisture stays in between your toes and then you put polyester socks on and put on your shoes. Imagine what can happen? Anyways if your dealing with toe nail fungus this tip is to use your hair dryer after showering to dry the toe nail out good so that the excess moisture is not there.
- Vinegar foot soak. Vinegar, can be either white vinegar or apple cider as long as it has a ph between 2-3. You would make a foot soak daily for 15 to 30 minutes. If you do not prefer the smell you can add some pure essential oils. You would use 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water. This would work for a mild fungus. Another option is to take a glass dropper bottle and put one part vinegar to two parts water and drop around the nail one to two times a day. I have had some clients tell me this method has worked to heal the toenail fungus. A little plug here and close to the same concept. If you had a Kangen water filter machine from Enagic which creates hydrogen rich water for you. You can take the same concept of the ph level of 2 to 3. If you put the machine setting to create a ph of say 2 and place this water in the water dropper bottle and do the same concept of vinegar. This can help kill the fungus. Note you would have to remake this water every 5 days and keep refrigerated as it will only stay effective for that amount of time.
- No cheap shoes. Your feet need to breath, unfortunately our feet need to breath and give and these modern day shoes are made out of polyester, a bi-product of crude oil, which doesn’t breath at all. When I say give you need your shoes to be flexible with your feet and move so that you don’t develop bunions and other unwanted foot growth. I always suggest leather over any other material that your shoes are made from.
Conclusion
Hopefully you learned something from this article. Like I say for any nail technicians out there, do not hesitate to let someone know you may suspect they have toenail fungus. Why I feel it is so important for someone to know is because it will never heal on its own. If anything it will get worse in time and spread to the next toenails. For anyone else reading this post, same. If you suspect you have something going on with a toenail or fingernail, do not hesitate to put some form of natural remedy on the nail. I cannot emphasize enough though you have to stay diligent. Daily doses because it will take time for the nail to grow out and heal properly but yes your toenails and fingernails can heal from fungus.
I did forget to mention there is internal medicine you can take. Yes prescription medicine you can take. I will only say to that, read the side effects. They are scary. Especially when it can affect your liver. A lot of podiatrists will prescribe medicine, mainly when the case is really bad but that has its own health risk. So note, try not to let your fungus go and address it as soon as you suspect something is off or not healing properly with your toenails. Thank you for reading and if you want to learn more about the Kangen water filter machine you can click the link in the menu and as always any questions please comment or reach out through the contact page.
Also check the link for my video on athletes foot. True personal story: