{"id":7979,"date":"2019-03-29T23:06:54","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T06:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/?p=7979"},"modified":"2019-03-31T00:50:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T07:50:08","slug":"nail-fungus-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/29\/nail-fungus-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Nail Fungus Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written a lot over the years about the nail fungus I have. Here&#8217;s a summary of what I&#8217;ve learned. For a lot more, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/?s=fungus\">search my blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I hope that even if this doesn\u2019t solve your nail problems, it let\u2019s you know what\u2019s going on. That can be a relief in itself.<\/p>\n<p>Over-the-counter topicals at your local pharmacy for about $20 sometimes clear up nail fungus, maybe 30% of the time. The ingredient in those products is usually undecylenic acid. Lamisil (or the generic terbinafine) topical ($30) or oral ($2000) is one drug that has better than average results. Going to a podiatrist and getting drugs, or getting your nail ripped out, or both ($50-$3000) might work. There are a couple types of nail fungus, the main classes being dermatophytes and candida. Drugs for one type usually don\u2019t affect the other so it\u2019s helpful to keep a list of what you\u2019ve tried. Laser treatments seem to be about 25% effective; many report a clearing in the first year and then a return after 2 years or so.<\/p>\n<p>For me, oral Lamisil cured most of my nails with 6 months of treatment in 2006 (13 years ago). My right big toe nail still grows wrong and hurts every few months. To remedy, I shorten the nail (with some pain) with nail clippers and the pain goes away in a few days. I make sure to spray a lot of Lamisil topical on me and the equipment to hopefully keep the possibility of spreading the infection to a minimum. I don\u2019t actually know if there is still an infection under the nail.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s lots of home-brew topicals that seem to work moderately well\u2026 probably a 30% chance of curing your toes. They might work for you, or not. In my case, all of the following appeared to \u201chelp\u201d but none got rid of my infection: undecylenic acid, Selsun Blue shampoo, tea tree oil, vinegar on a cotton ball, vapo-rub (I haven\u2019t tried), grapeseed extract. The Selsun Blue helped a lot because it\u2019s inexpensive enough to rub on my whole foot to knock out athelete\u2019s foot and possibly the nail infection.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, modern science doesn\u2019t have a guaranteed cure for nail fungus. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you snake oil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written a lot over the years about the nail fungus I have. Here&#8217;s a summary of what I&#8217;ve learned. For a lot more, you can search my blog. I hope that even if this doesn\u2019t solve your nail problems, it let\u2019s you know what\u2019s going on. That can be a relief in itself. Over-the-counter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nail-fungus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}