Skin and Nail Problem
Foot odor results from excessive perspiration from the more than 250,000 sweat glands in the foot. Daily hygiene is essential. Change your shoes daily to let each pair air out, and change your socks, perhaps even more frequently than daily. Foot powders and antiperspirants, and specialized shoe and socks or insoles can help lessen odor.
Ingrown nails are nails whose corners or sides of the nails dig painfully into the skin, often causing infection. They are frequently caused by improper nail trimming but also by shoe pressure, injury, fungus infection, heredity, and poor foot structure. Toenails should be trimmed straight across, slightly longer than the end of the toe. If the ingrown portion of the nail is painful or infected, our podiatrist may remove the affected portion; if the condition reoccurs frequently, our podiatrist may remove the ingrown nail surgically under local anaesthetic.
Thickened toenails are very common and can become problematic as they can be very difficult to cut with normal nail clippers. Nails can become thickened due to repetitive trauma or damage to the nail bed. Incorrectly fitting shoes can cause the toes to bang repetitively against the end of the shoe causing microtrauma. If you have dropped or kicked a particular toe it can cause damage to the nail bed causing it to grow back thicker permanently. . As the nail thickens, they can increase the pressure on the toe which can become painful when wearing shoes.
In some cases, the way that a person walks can contribute to thickening of the toenails (for example if a person has developed claw toes due to their walking style, the toes will absorb the ground reaction forces through the end of the toes which can causes thickening of the toenails and corns/calluses on the ends of the toes). Age related changes can also cause nails to thicken.
Our podiatrist can remove or thin down the thickened and deformed nails and advise you on proper footwear or insert.