Fungal toe-nail infection - about time I did something about this! Can it cause other issues?

Skin, nail and hair health
1

Hi all, my first post here and I am really hoping that somebody can advise me.

In my teens I had a dreadful fungal nail infection on my toenails - for example the nail on my right sided big toe was completely yellow and crusting away, and all the nails were effected, but the doctor wouldn't prescribe the tablets I needed to clear it up as he said I was not old enough and that they can cause other problems anyway. So he always gave me anti fungal cream that I had to apply twice a day, but it never ever did a thing!

When I got a bit older (around 22, 6 years ago) I decided to give the tablets a go because I was so disgusted with my toenails and it was really effecting my self-confidence. To my amazement the infection started to clear up on most of my nails and things were looking positive. However I started to feel really ill, and thinking it was the tablets, I stopped taking them. My nails still for the most part looked good though.

But now my fungal infection is back again, and whilst my big toenails look almost normal and fine, the other toes, especially on my left foot, are a bit manky, some are even yellow. I don't know what to do about this really and was hoping someone could advise me. I would usually go to the doctors, but I am currently signed off work with what they say is anxiety/depression and extreme fatigue, and I have to go to the doctors enough as it is, and am also taking medication for the depression and also an underactive thyroid, so I don't really want to be taking more tablets - also I am starting to get really self-conscious about going to the doctors, almost feeling like they must be fed up to the back teeth with me, so I am nervous about going back with yet another problem sad

I know that back in the day (my teens) when I first had the problem, there was really only the anti-fungal cream, which as I said before, seemed to do nothing whatsoever, but now I always see adverts on TV with products that can be bought over the counter and say they clear up the infection completely. What I want to know is which product would you recommend, or would you say it is best to have a doctors appointment?

Also, does having the infection on my toes cause problems for other parts of the body? I am starting to wonder if there is a link with me having the fungal infection on my toes and my tiredness, as I read that yeast infections can cause fatigue.

Any information would be much appreciated

Thanks

2

Hi,

I have seen many threads on this condition 'Fungal infection on nail' here on patient, hope you find your answers on some of these threads. (sorry if it seems that I am stating the obvious)

best wishes

3

Thanks for the reply. I have posted this in the right section haven't I? (I clicked on "Fungal Infection Of Nail" forum, hoping it is appearing there)

4

No ideas?

5

Hi, I have come on here as after years of trying I am finally free of toenail infections.

For years I was using the paint on varnish but my doctor said we don't precribe that anymore as it does not work (clearly) Very expensive and useless.

He prescibed me Terbinafine 250mg. one a day for 6 months.

Then I went to Boots and got some Tea tree oil, it's £4 and last for weeks. Cut you toenail as short as you can then put a drop of oil on all your nails morning and night. The shorter you cut the nail, the better.

After 12 weeks my nail is perfect, but I am still taking the Terbinafine to complete the 6 months course.

I never thought I would get rid of the infection as it's been ten years. My nails look perfectly normal and healthy now so good luck :-D

(Angiebrighton 28 February 2012 at 11:28AM)

6

Apparently there are lots of things you can use to clear up fungal infections of the nails, tea tree oil as already mentioned but one other is URINE! Some people swear by drinking it but the majority have said that soaking their feet in it every day works too. You'll find lots of websites with instrutions on what to do. Oh, by the way, it's best to use your own urine rather than someone elses!!

7

if you soaK in original Listurine mouth wash 15 minutes a day it will be gone within 3 months For mild fungusand no stinky fungus feet, yay!

8

Alex please try the original Listerine, it work i swear by it...give it 3 months.

9

I've had toenail fungus for some 30+ years. I'm an avid swimmer and probably picked it up in one of many many pools that I trained in. I know I'm sensitive to athletes foot. Two days after swimming in a new pool or training in a new club I know if they keep the property clean or not. If not I get athletes foot which luckily can be cured in few days by 2% miconazole nitrate powder.

The fungus (Onychomycosis) started with one toe and over some 30 years slowly expanded to all but 3 toes. It spreads extremely slowly so it's surprising these three toes are still OK. Tried everything including antifungal medication. I stopped the medication after a month because I preferred yellow toes over kidney and other potential side effects. Tried everything from Vicks to Listerine and tea tree oil. Basically its all crap.

Some of them may have worked in the long run (I doubt it) but it is awfully hard to continue treatment every day for over a year if you don't see any progress. Anyone claiming you can get rid of toenail fungus in less than 6 months is selling you crap. The fungus is located in the nail and whatever you put on the nail isn't going to kill it. The only way to eliminate it is to either pull the nail or have the fungus grow out with the nail, which takes a year or more (1 mm per month). I had my big toenail removed and applied antifungal cream for multiple months, but both the nail and the fungus grew back.

Last year I dumbly wondered why, if I'm so sensitive to this nail fungus, it did not spread to my hands. Obvious conclusion is that your fingers are in the light every day and your toes aren't.

Applying massive amounts of high powered light, such as in laser therapy, could therefore be the solution. However, I did not plan to spend £1000+ on such treatment and also do not believe a 'handful' of laser treatments would completely eliminate the fungus. If you want to do it right these treatments need to be continued for several months. I do consider (sun)light the solution to the problem but not the high powered laserlight approach. So I started wearing slippers for one month last summer and noticed significant improvement: a thin 'moon slice' piece of nail became visible at the base.

Initially felt a little bad about my yellow nails but I noticed that, in practice, nobody looks at your toes so. After summer I decided to continue the light approach so I bought an inexpensive UV nail polish dryer (around £30). One of those white boxes in which you can fit the front part of your foot. It has four 9 Watt blue UV lights. Checked multiple health articles on-line and found they only use part of the UV spectrum with (almost) zero risk to mess up your DNA which could cause cancer. Studies state that you may have increased cancer risk if you use it for 250 years or so. If you really want to minimize risk you can cover all but the fungus toes with SPF 50 sunscreen. I stationed the dryer under my desk at home and use it 30 minutes a day, 3-4 days a week, while I'm working at my PC. I started with short intervals to see what happened and noticed a slight tan starts to become visible if you use it well over an hour per day, so no sunburn risk.

It's now four months later and all new nail growth is without fungus. Now that the base of the nails are clear it is also much easier for the light to pass through and prevent new fungus growth. I'm about half way on my big toenail so some more months to get rid of it completely. Of course I also keep the nails very clean and very short to eliminate as much of the fungus. Key item for this solution to work is that you have 30 or more minutes available a few times a week for this remedy. Working on the PC allows me to put one foot in the UV dryer for 10-15 minutes and then the other one. Since the dryer is under the desk the blueish light doesn't bother me. So for some £35 and a minor amount of effort I'm getting rid of this fungus. Whenever it's feasible I wear slippers or sandals. Given the very slow spreading of this fungus I'll probably OK for the next 10-20 years. Good luck!

10

Hi Dorothy. Depends on what you define as 'completely cleared the infection'. If, after being yellow and messy for 10+ years, the bottom half of several toenails are completely free of fungus I consider the therapy a success. We're not talking about short term success because it has already taken 6 months for the bottom part of the nails to become clear of the fungus. Clearing the remainder is just a matter of time and perseverance. They may never become 100% free and I don't really care about that since I know it will be easy and inexpensive to keep the fungus under control.

Of course I have before/after pics and don't mind waiting another six months to post this again. Reason for posting is the observation that it is the lack of sunlight that supports the fungus. Since it is not very comfortable in our part of the world to walk barefoot all year a little help from a moderate UV source is all one needs. So even if putting all kinds of oily and/or agressive fluids on your toes may reduce the fungus, the chance that it will return is high because of the lack of sunlight.

My reason for posting on this site rather than others is that 99% of all socalled anti-fungus websites have been created to sell something, while all one actually needs is a bit of common sense and a moderate amount sunlight. What works for your hands also works for your feet.

11

Last but not least: Don't forget to follow Madonna's very good advice to Dave Letterman in a Late Show in 1994: Whenever you're in the shower don't forget to pee over your toenails. You can look up the fragment on internet. Cheers.

12

I had a bad reaction to the oral medication for fungal nail infection and stopped taking it. There are several "varnishes" that can be prescribed or bought over the counter that worked for me. Why not ask your doctor to give you a prescription for that instead and give it a whirl. Keep taking your thyroid medication and getting your thyroid hormone levels checked. My daughter was diagnosed under active years ago and her doctor has prescribed anti depressants a couple of times incorrectly as he wasn't keeping a close watch on all three test results. It turned out her "depression" was actually due to her thyroid medication not being correctly adjusted. It took a private consultation before we got her any proper treatment. She us fine now and knows what to ask for if things go wrong again.

13

Firstly yoru "depression" could be due to your thyroid medication not being properly regulated - this happened to my daughter who was prescribed anti depressants unnecessarily because her GP was saving money by

not having the full range of tests done for her thyroid condition despite her being a known sufferer. The anti

depressants exacerbated her condition and eventually we had to get her a private appointment with the

thyroid specialist as the GP kept putting us off by saying there was such a long waiting list for NHS

appointment. She is now absolutely fine. Regarding your nails there is a lacquer you can paint on and also

there is laser treatment which sadly is not funded by NHS. I had bad reaction to the pills and stopped them.

Then doctor gave me paint which seems to be working. Hope this helps.

14

Hi there,

This happened to me a couple of years ago. I had a toe nail infection develop, then another two nails became infected (despite being a reasonably healthy person). Interesting that you are feeling fatigued - I also developed fatigue, especially after taking antibiotics and subsequently the infection returned once again - read on as it's no coincidence that are feeling this way. After I developing symptoms (re-infected nail and tireness, combined with a couple of bladder infections), I spoke with a friend who's very much 'clued up' in health care and I was pointed in the direction of candida.

Candida is the bad bacteria in that develops in your gut in certain conditions (e.g. after stress, or more so after a course of antibiotics! as the good bacteria are killed and the bad bacteria have the conditions to multiply, then you're feeling very bad) it then mutates to a fungi and infects parts of your body - a big clue is toe nail infections, especially for someone so young (unless you're an athlete who wears trainers for 15 hours a day).

Sad thing is many doctors aren't taught about candida. Symptoms of candida include - fungal infections, thrush, tiredness, low moods, digestive troubles etc - the symptoms seemed to fit, so I started a diet protocol over two months, whilst taking probiotics (buy a good one - I recommend at least 20 billion - undo's probiotic 8 is my favorite choice, it's good quality and value for money). I can't express enough how much better I felt. Please research Candida - if you have any questions, please get back to me.

15

Having suffered from this condition of the toenails, I offer the following information:-

After about 5 treatments of the paint prescribed by my GP (the one with the nail files and plastic spreaders, I forget the brandname) without any success whatsoever, I was eventually prescribed terbinafine, my GP saying (almost verbatim) "That varnish never does work, it's useles" (my thoughts at the time were "well why prescribe the bloody stuff in the first place then, wasting all that time, expense and adding to my catalogue of medical conditions? - I am diabetic, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and about four or five other conditions that I won't describe here for possible breaches of my own confidentiality)

I was initially prescribed terbinafine for about 6 months, and because it does have side effects my GP did not want to prescribe for longer, especially with my other ailments; within that six months, my condition had improved considerably, although not entirely cured; my GP therefore said that he would continue temporarily with the terbinafine, and within another three months or so, it had cleared up - the beneficial side effects that occurred was that my fingernails also improved considerably, and also the very bad cracking of the skin between my toes, which I had suffered from for several decades, also disappeared; I still have terbinafine prescribed, and although I don't use it every day, I do continue to use it on a fairly regular basis in order to keep the condition at bay

It is NOT an overnight success treatment, but it has, after a time, completely healed my condition - please do not be put off by the possible side effects, after all, if you read all the paperwork that comes with each medicine, each warning of various side effects, you'd never go to the doctor or take any medicine at all!

Hope that helps

16

Hello Alex, for about 8 years my left big toe has been thick and yellow. I always covered my toes through summer and winter and only recently covered them with nail polish so I could wear sandals in the summer months. Bad idea I know. The nail had separated from the nail bed. The other toenail started to get dark in colour and started to lift and eventually came off. After much reading on the internet I started to soak my feet in apple cider vinegar twice a day and of an evening put a few drops of tea tree oil down into the nail bed and on the nail. After the soaks I dry them off very thoroughly with a clean towel and dry them off further with a hair dryer. I started this treatment early February 2014 and a new nail has grown out from the base about 7mm and is pink and clear. I'm now using white vinegar as it's cheaper and am also combining lavender oil with the tea tree oil of an evening. I am so thrilled with the progress of the nails and can't wait until they have grown right out which I think will be about 6 more months but may be 12 months. I am very diligent with the vinegar soaks and should I miss one carry a stray bottle of vinegar with me. Sometimes I try to put my toes in the sun for a few minutes each day. The yellow nail is still thick but I have decided not to file it down as I don't want to risk spreading anything to the new nail. I have also started to try and treat it from the inside and am taking an acidophilus capsule everyday and taking 15ml of olive leaf extract everyday. Whilst I cannot say at this point I have cured my toenail fungus but it is looking very promising. Should the new nail keep growing out clear my plan is to keep up the vinegar soak at least once a day and continue with the combined tea tree oil/lavender oil. I hope you are going well with your efforts. Cheers.

17

i had toenail fungus for years in both big toes about half way down to the cuticle. I cured one accidentally. I treated the other with Listerine, tea tree oil, and an OTC anti-fungal liquid marketed for nail fungus only to have the problem worsen. The cure was when I accidentally smashed the toe causing a blood blister under it. As is usually the case, the blood blister separated the nail from the nail bed and I lost the toenail. As it grew out, it separated from the cuticle and I could see a new nail growing under it. The front edge of this new nail was completely sealed until it finished growing to the end of the toe months later. By then the fungus was no longer there to infect it. I'm not sure that I recommend this method but it did work for me 100%. I think that I'll try the sunlight and UV recommended by Pazzoppe, above. It would be nice to hear an update from Pazzoppe since it's been 6 months since his post. If that doesn't work, I may ice it to dull the pain and mash it under conditions a bit more controlled than the first one.

18

Just a quick note to say thank you for all the suggestions and advice on here.

Unfortunately I've only been able to glance at it occasionally, and not had the chance to properly read through all the posts that have accumulated!

I just thought I'd share an update quickly though:

I went to the doctors about something else about a month ago. At the end of the appointment, I mentioned about my toe nail discolouration/problems and said I'd kind of put it to the back of my priorities with other medical things going on. She asked to have a look at them and said they couldn't be sure if it's fungal or not until they send off a sample to the lab to test, but also made sure to say that "just be aware it's nothing serious or contagious"

I sent off the sample and today I received a call about the results. They told me it is fungal, and that I have the option of two different tablet treatmets (one a day for 3 months with one of them, and the other two tablets twice a day for one week in every month for 3-4 months)

But the lady who spoke to me on the phone also made it clear that if I wanted to, I could do nothing about it. She said it's "only cosmetic" and not contagious and won't cause any problems.

I find this hard to believe. Surely there must be some *REASON* why my toe nails are like this, and there must be something wrong in my body to make it happen? How is it just cosmetic? In fact the way they spoke made it sound like I *should* just leave it and do nothing about it.

With my current chronic fatigue/depression/underactive thyroid, I've always wondered if there's something in my body that's causing all of this. But I don't know - I seem to be getting nowhere fast!

I said I'd think about it and make an appointment - the tablets sound all well and good, but I did ask whether the liver could be effected. Was told in under 1% of people who take the tablets that can happen.

19

Hi. You have just described my life in detail!!!! I have nail fungal on at least 4 of my toes, had it on my big toes for a few years and suddenly in the last few weeks it's appearing on another two and looks like another is starting, I live and die in flip flops and don't very often wear closed toe shoes, I do wear trainers but not all the time? I have vertical ridges on my finger nails which are splitting and can be very painful, also I have an under active thyroid and polymyalgia for which I am taking steroids, initially at 40 mg but am now down to 10mg and my GP is reducing the dose slowly, insomnia, brain fog, slow pulse, slow heart rate, low blood pressure, body core temperature of 36? Seems everything about my body is slow, except my craving for sugar which is out of control, giving up smoking 20 years ago is easier than giving up sugar and yet I don't take it in drinks or on cereal, strange? Any thought or advise greatly appreciated.

20

Hi and I know where your coming from regarding the sunlight and dry air, however my son has the fungus onseveral finger nails which are in the sun all day and eveyday. How can that be explained?