Ingrown Toenail: A painful Condition Occurs When Nail Grow Within The Skin.

The ingrown toenail is a painful condition that occurs when the edges or corners of the nails grow within the skin next to the nail. The big toe is most likely to get an ingrown toenail. Various causes include poorly fitting footwear, infection, improperly trimmed toenail, heredity, and trauma.

The great toe is the several commonly involved, the lateral side involved in more cases than the medical side. The simulated toe has all the classic signs of the infection such as pain, oedema, erythema, and warmth.

The mechanism of why and how this infection happens is as follows: 

When the skin around the nail gets infected, it begins to swell up put even more pressure against the nail. Ingrown nails can produce a spear-shaped wedge of the nail on the lateral side of the toe which progressively becomes more forward.

In the worst case, the swelling will begin putting sideways pressure on the nail, causing it to grow at a slant. This will cause both sides of the nail to eventually become ingrown and swollen. Eventually, the swollen parts of the skin will begin to harden and fold over the nail. 

The skin will begin to harden and fold over the nail. The initial surgical procedure is typically a partial avulsion of the nail plate known as wedge resection or complete removal of the toenail. In a wedge resection, the digit is first injected with a local anaesthetic. When the field is numb, the doctor will perform an onychectomy in which the nail accompanying the edge that is starting into the skin is cut away and the offending piece of nail is pulled out.

If the ingrown toenail reoccurs despite this treatment, destruction of the germinal matrix with phenol is recommended, a procedure called matrixectomy where the nail cells are ablated with a chemical to stop the ingrown borders from growing back.