Toenail Fungus Treatments: Including Sporanox and Lamisil Reviews
Posted by HubSpot User Default on Mon, Apr 11, 2011 @ 01:01 PM
Fungaled toenails, or onychomycosis, can be unsightly and lead to ingrown toenails due to increased nail thickness, cracking and peelng skin. In general, doctors tend to stay away from prescribing oral anti-fungal medicine, such as Sporanox and lamisil anti-fungal pills, due to their negative side-effects on the liver.
I
t can take up to a year to notice a considerable difference with any treatment. For those of you willing to undertake the task of attacking toenail fungus, here are your weapons.
What kills fungus?
Air, vinegar, bleach, tea tree oil, and dryness are a few of the weapons we can easily combine to kill fungus. Fungus lives in moist areas such as sweaty socks, shower stalls and shoe linings. Fungus thrives in an anaerobic (oxygen deprived) environment under the nail called the Nail Matrix. Treating the Nail Matrix will eliminate the source of the fungus and eventually allow a new healthy nail to grow out.
Tactics to Eliminate Toenail Fungus
AIR:
Get as much air under the nails by cutting the nails as short as possible, gently cleaning the debri under the nails, using an emery board weekly to file the top of the nails, and avoiding toe nail polish as much as possible (quickly remove when not needed).
VINEGAR:
Soak your feet in white vinegar 30 minutes twice weekly using a 1 part warm water to 1 part white vinegar ratio.
BLEACH:
Disinfect your shower weekly with bleach (ie Lysol).
TEA TREE OIL:
Apply daily tea tree oil twenty minutes before you go to bed to each affected nail. It must dry well before getting under the sheets.
DRYNESS:
Air out your shoes weekly that you use regularly by removing the shoe inserts, applying foot powder under and on top of any insert, and rubbing at the top of the toebox where you imagine the toenails rub.
PATIENCE:
One problem we have conquering toenail fungus is time. It takes over one year for the toenail to completely grow out twice. There is a general rule that it takes not one, but two of these growth spurts to push the unsightly debri of the killed fungus out from under the nail bed
If you decide to use oral anti-fungal pills, it is recommended to use pulsed Sporanox. It is the safest on the market. The treatment consists of taking Sporanox Pills for 7 days each month for 6 months. You still have to do the topical treatments as mentioned above. At present, the pulsed Sporonox does not need liver testing as part of the treatment, but your prescribing doctor may feel safer doing that. Golden Rule of Foot: Always err on the side of caution.
(Excerpt from Dr. Richard Blake's Article "Toenail Fungus: Key Points of Treatment")
