[Originally published March 10, 2006]
If you’re squemish, you might not want to read this one.
So I had my ingrown toenails corrected on Wednesday. I had a correction when I was younger, I think in middle school, and boy did that hurt. The old doc at the HMO had to inject the anesthetic under the nail bed. That had been the worst pain ever. Since then I decided I never wanted to through that again.
Well, over the last 15 years I’ve been kindof self treating. Grabbing tweezers, q-tips, and alcohol and plucking out the pointed edges whenever I could. It kindof helped and other than the annoyance was pretty much under control. That is, until last week. My left big toe was kindof purple, very tender, and swollen. I picked at it a bit and all this puss came out and it started bleeding. The slightest touch lead to an awful pain.
Of course Sarah is the smart one here, and told me to call the podiatriest ASAP. So I did and got an appointment on Wednesday. He calmly injected all around my toe, and reassured me that he would never ever even think of sticking the needle in the nail bed. It actually went quite well, and there was very little pain. Now I’ve got these giant gauze covered toes, which don’t fit so well in my shoes, but it definitely feels so much better. Hopefully this correction holds and I won’t have to do it again. But for the next few days I’ll still be walking a little funny.
So what do we all learn from this lesson? Listen to your wife, and go see a doctor. Self treatment is usually a bad idea!
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