Ingrown toenails have a season, and it is this one. Every year from June onwards, appointments at Beauty by Ruth, a beauty salon in Maghull, include a steady stream of women whose big toe has become sore, red and tender along one edge, usually with no obvious explanation. There almost always is an explanation, and it is generally a combination of warm weather, changed footwear and a well-meant attempt at home nail care that has gone slightly awry.
What Is Actually Happening At The Edge Of The Nail
An ingrown toenail occurs when the edge of the nail grows into the soft skin at the side of the toe rather than across the top of it. The skin responds to the pressure by becoming inflamed, which makes the area swell, which in turn presses harder against the nail. That is why an ingrown toenail tends to worsen rather than settle on its own once it has properly started.
The big toe is affected far more often than the others, simply because it carries the most pressure with every step and has the widest nail. It is usually one edge rather than both, and it commonly follows a change in shoes, a long walk or a session of cutting the nails a little too enthusiastically.
Sandals And Flip-Flops Change How Your Toes Work
This is the summer cause almost nobody suspects. In a backless sandal or a flip-flop, the toes have to grip slightly with every step to keep the shoe on the foot. That gripping curls the toes downward repeatedly, hour after hour, which presses the soft skin up against the nail edge. Do that for a fortnight of warm weather and it is easy to see why an edge that was perfectly comfortable in May becomes sore in July.
Open shoes also leave the toes unprotected against knocks, and a single stubbed toe on a garden step can be enough to start the process off. It is worth noticing whether your discomfort appeared shortly after you changed to summer shoes.
Warm Weather, Swelling And Softer Skin
Feet swell in the heat. Anyone who has flown somewhere warm knows the feeling of shoes that fitted perfectly at Liverpool airport and not at all on arrival. Mild swelling narrows the space around the nail and increases the pressure on the skin beside it. At the same time, feet spend more of the summer damp, from swimming, from perspiration and from beaches, and skin that is repeatedly wet becomes softer and more easily pierced by a nail edge.
Neither factor causes an ingrown toenail on its own. Together with summer footwear and more walking, they explain the seasonal pattern perfectly well.
How You Cut Your Toenails Matters More Than You Think
Toenails should be cut straight across, not curved down at the corners in the way fingernails are shaped. Rounding the corners leaves a short spike of nail at the edge which then grows directly into the skin as it lengthens. Cutting them too short compounds the problem, because it exposes more of the soft skin at the sides.
Picking or tearing nails rather than cutting them is worse again, as it leaves a ragged edge that catches. If reaching your feet comfortably has become difficult, which is genuinely common and nothing to be embarrassed about, having them cut properly as part of a professional appointment prevents a great deal of trouble later.
Why Home Treatment So Often Backfires
The instinct when a toe becomes sore is to dig down the side and remove whatever is causing it. This almost always makes matters worse. It leaves a fresh spike behind, breaks the skin that is already inflamed and introduces the risk of infection to an area that is warm and damp. The same goes for cutting a notch in the middle of the nail, an old remedy that has no effect on the edges at all.
Soaking the foot in warm water, wearing wider shoes for a few days and keeping the area clean and dry is sensible first aid. Anything more than that is better handled by someone who can see what is happening.
What A Professional Appointment Involves
Ruth includes treatment for ingrown toenails within her foot health treatment, alongside toenail cutting, callus removal and corn removal. The nail edge is dealt with properly rather than dug at, the surrounding hard skin is reduced so that pressure is relieved, and you leave with advice on cutting and footwear so that the same edge does not become a recurring problem every summer.
Booking a foot health treatment Liverpool appointment early, when the toe is merely uncomfortable rather than genuinely painful, is far easier on everyone. Women come to Ruth from Maghull, Aintree, Lydiate and Crosby for precisely this reason, often having left it a little longer than they meant to.
When It Needs A Doctor Instead
Some ingrown toenails are beyond the scope of a beauty salon and Ruth will say so directly. If the toe is producing pus, if there is spreading redness up the foot, if it is throbbing persistently or if you have diabetes, reduced circulation or reduced sensation in your feet, the right first call is your GP or a podiatrist rather than the salon. That is not a matter of caution for its own sake. It is simply the correct route for an infected or medically complicated toe.
For everything short of that, prevention is far easier than repair, and the wider picture on how summer sandals and flip-flops cause foot problems is worth understanding. To book an appointment or ask whether yours is something Ruth can help with, call 0151 909 6116 or read more about Beauty by Ruth and her twenty-five years of experience in Maghull.
