Onychomycosis is a fungal infection that affects the surface of the nail plate. Three pathogens are most commonly detected in the analysis: yeast-like fungi, molds, and dermatophytes.
Why does fungus appear?
The fungus itself cannot be displayed. This disease is always accompanied by certain driving factors, such as:
- Use household products with fungal spores. If a family member has onychomycosis and other people use his towel, slippers or socks, the risk of infection is high.
- Visit public places with large populations. Saunas, bathrooms, swimming pools, solariums, showers, health clubs, beaches-all of these locations can become a place where nail fungus infections.
- The constant high temperature and humidity of the shoes. Fungal infections often outnumber office workers and military personnel, who are forced to wear shoes all day. Insufficient air, small space and uncomfortable shoes can cause sweating, blood stasis and onychomycosis.
- Decreased immunity. If the immune defenses are weakened due to disease after taking antibiotics and other reasons, onychomycosis may occur.
- The age of the person. In children, fungi do not appear due to their physiological characteristics-infectious pathogens take some time to gain a foothold and reproduce. And children’s nails grow very fast, so onychomycosis does not have time to develop. It often affects adults and almost always affects the elderly and the elderly. Their nail plates grow very slowly, so it is particularly difficult to remove fungi from old nails.
How to understand that nails are affected by fungal diseases?
Any changes to the nail board indicate that there may be a problem. The symptoms of onychomycosis will be the following:
- Cracks between the fingers;
- Yellow nail plate;
- Thick skin;
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- There is no mechanical reason for nail separation;
- burning and itching;
- nail wrinkles inflamed;
- nail thinning or thickening.
Healthy nails should be pink, shiny and smooth.
A quick and effective way to treat fungus at home
The fight with onychomycosis usually takes at least one month. The sooner you start treatment, the faster you will get rid of the disease. You can resort to traditional medicine or use pharmaceutical preparations. However, it is best to combine time-tested advice with effective medicines-this will make you forget about the fungus quickly.
Prepare nail plate for treatment
Generally, simply using antifungal drugs does not bring the desired results. This happens because the medicinal substance cannot penetrate into the inside through the nail thickened by the fungus.
Before starting treatment, the nail plate affected by the onychomycosis should be removed. There are several ways to do this:
- Steam feet with hot water. It is important to keep the water temperature for about half an hour (up to 50 degrees). To do this, you can pour dry mustard into the water and keep adding new portions of hot liquid. Next, you need to cut off the overgrown part of the steamed nail plate and use a low abrasive (100-150 grit) file to reduce the thickness of the nail itself.
- Buy an anti-fungal cream from a pharmacy. This tool comes from the budget department, but its role can replace surgery or laser nail removal. The paste contains urea, which can soften the nail plate without causing pain and discomfort, and then cut it off or remove it with a spatula. The drug is used to clean and dry nails affected by onychomycosis, and stick tape across the top of it. It is important not to delete it within about 2 days. For the late stages of the fungus, several such procedures may be required.
- Use anti-fungal cream. The main ingredient is urea or urea. On steamed but towel-dried nails, you need to apply cream, seal with plaster, and do not remove it within 3-4 days. Then wash with hot water again to remove the softened debris.
If the nails or onychomycosis are not removed, there is no point in treating them.
Steam bath
High temperature and water will soften the nail plate. It becomes easier to handle and remove diseased debris when necessary. Before any medical procedures, you should steam your legs. You can do this in the following ways:
- Stir 4 tablespoons of iodized salt, 200 grams of baking soda and a few drops of lavender essential oil in hot water. Lower your legs until they cool down. Then wash and dry with a clean towel.
- Finely grind a piece of tar soap. Add 3 tablespoons of "flour" and a cup of baking soda to a bowl of hot water, and steam the legs for 10-20 minutes. It is best to use this bath as a preparation before the next treatment procedure.
Cleaning supplies
If you can’t press or apply ointment for a long time, wiping your nails will help. Onychomycosis requires continuous and complex treatment, so sometimes you can use folk recipes:
- Dip a cotton ball in apple cider vinegar to fully lubricate the diseased nail. Fungi like alkaline environments, so their oxidation will inhibit infection.
- Mix 2 tablespoons of marigolds and lavender flowers, pour a glass of vodka, and let it brew for at least a week. Apply to sore nails three times a day.
Wrapping and compression
Compression has a very good effect on the health of nails and eliminates infectious substances.
- Pour celandine oil on the cotton pad. Put on the infected nail, bandage it slightly, put on socks, and walk all day. After that, you can treat the board with hydrogen peroxide or iodine.
- Chop a few cloves of garlic on a fine grater and add 1 teaspoon of any vegetable oil. Spread the resulting porridge on the sick nail plate, tie a bandage on it, and put on socks. Keep it for a few hours. If you have a burning sensation, remove the compresses and wash your feet with tar soap.
Creams, medicinal solutions
Antifungal drugs are effective against fungal infections. Usually, the product line from a manufacturer has both liquid products and various creams with the same active ingredients.
Oral tablets and capsules
Sometimes it is impossible to treat the fungus without "inside" contact. Taking antifungal drugs can speed up recovery.
How to treat advanced toenail fungus
If you start onychomycosis, folk remedies will not work. In this case, you definitely need to consult a dermatologist or at least a dermatologist. He is likely to prescribe the following program:
- Identify pathogens. Usually, one scrape from the board (there are few nail fragments). These materials were sent for microscopic examination.
- Take medicine. After identifying the parasitic fungus, prescribe internal antifungal drugs and topical preparations.
- Remove the nail or the entire plate from the affected area. If onychomycosis affects less than half of the area, a medical pedicure should be performed. If the entire nail plate is infected, it may need to be surgically removed. The method of iodine treatment The pathogen of onychomycosis feeds on keratin in the epidermis. The detrimental effect of iodine on fungi is that it sticks this protein together and death from infection. Repeated application of iodine to the affected area actually burns the parasitic pathogen. The medicine has an antiseptic effect and prevents the infection from recurring.
Iodine is a powerful medicine. It can only be applied to affected nail fragments. Contact with healthy skin can cause inflammation and severe burns.
In the late stage of onychomycosis, iodine can be used as an additive to steam baths. Pour the entire preparation from the bottle into hot water and lower your legs for 20-30 minutes. Not only on the nails, but also on the skin (the skin may also have a significant bactericidal effect), there may also be infectious pathogen spores on the skin. After the operation, you can treat your feet with hydrogen peroxide.
In the initial stage, you need to apply iodine to the nail plate with a cotton swab every few days. After about a week, when the area below the affected area starts to burn, it will be a good result, indicating that the treatment was successful.
In order to have anti-fungal and care effects at the same time, you can add 3 drops of iodine to 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Heat this mixture in a water bath, apply it to your nails, and place it on the clean socks. Overnight, wash your feet with soap and water in the morning.
Iodine is one of the most cost-effective medicines. It can be used continuously throughout the month. If there is no result, you should change the type of treatment or consult a doctor.
Onychomycosis has been successfully treated with complex local and systemic therapies. The combination of medicine and folk remedies will enable you to overcome fungal infections within 1 month.