infected big toe nail with puss and red tender cuticle, help!
This toe started with a mild fungus (I think). I painted my toe nails for a vacation. After about 3 weeks, the toe became painful enough to wake me in the middle of the night. I had to take Advil to fall back to sleep. A few days later, I removed the nail polish to see that my big toe nail appeared to have separated partially from the nail bed. (About one half of it on the right side). I trimmed the nail, cleaned the area beneath the nail, and found that it was very painful to clean. I soaked my toe in Listerine hoping to give it a good cleaning. Afterwards, it started to ooze puss when I cleaned under the nail again. The cuticle area is also red and tender to the touch. Do I need to seek medical attention for this? Or do I simply treat for fungus? It continues to drain and still throbs and hurts in cycles.
Re: infected big toe nail with puss and red tender cuticle, help!
Is the side of your toe nail grown in? I used to get ingrown toenails a lot, too, and I didn't do anything about it until it got infected (it would hurt a lot, and ooze pus when I squeezed it). Can you tell if the nail is grown in? Maybe you should go to a podiatrist.
It sounds worse than just a case of fungus, which usually doesn't hurt, and doesn't ooze pus.
Re: infected big toe nail with puss and red tender cuticle, help!
Thanks for the response. No, no ingrown toe nail. The red inflammed area is at the base (cuticle) area of the toe nail. It's still red and tender, but a little less so since the toe nail did drain quite a bit. I've soaked with sea salt, dabbed listerine, hydrogen pyroxide and bleach (seperatley), hoping that one of them will dry it out and rid me of this infection. I suppose I should go in and see the doc on it to make certain that it's not worse that I think that it is.
Re: infected big toe nail with puss and red tender cuticle, help!
If you have an infection in the matrix, you need to see your podiatrist for a prescription of oral antibiotics. In the meantime, apply ONLY peroxide and nothing else. All the other stuff you have been using is only compounding the problem.
Re: infected big toe nail with puss and red tender cuticle, help!
Marti,
Thank you for your insight. I was hoping to hear from you on this. I couldn't find a similar problem on this site anywhere and was unsure about how to proceed with this.
infected big toe nail with puss and red tender cuticle, help! 
