Infected toe! Ridiculous I know but anything I can do?

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

My big toes gone yucky and it really hurts! Very silly to be complaining about such a minor thing, but it's getting worse not better...

Is there anything I can do at home to avoid a GP appointment? I've got some really big health problems and struggle to get to docs appointments, so would rather not go if I can make it disappear - that's the injection not disappearing the toe itself!

Liquid and pus, which I could get rid of at first by pressing the skin and swelling on the right hand side of the nail, but now it's gone under the nail. Yuck! It's red and swollen and surprisingly painful on the tip of my toe and the underneath, so not confined to the nail.

I've been splathering germoline on it, elastaplasting when I'm in bed as even the duvet hurts it, but trying to leave it open to the air when at home in the day. Can't put a shoe on.

Any advise? Stupid toe.

Do you understand that if you do have diabetes, which you might not yet know about, you may be in danger of developing gangrene in your toe ? You already know the circulation in your feet isn't good. Don't mess about with home cures. Go and show your foot to a pharmacist today, and follow their advice.

Ah - I would go and get some medical advice OP.

Infections can be dangerous - don't mess about too long with salt water soaks and tcp. If it is a true infection then anti biotics and medical monitoring will be the safest way to go.

Hopefully it will soon heal.

Even more reason to get it seen to if you have no safety net OP.

How's your toe, OP ?

Still gross but not getting more gross. Tried to book an appointment again today and actually got through (I rang 17 times yesterday & didn't get through, so it's not for want of trying!)

Anyway, still don't have an appointment but have a plan to get one, the receptionist recognized me which helped I think. She said to ring at 8 on Wednesday and she'll put me straight down for an emergency appointment then so it fits with another appointment I'm going in for on that day (for 24hr blood pressure test).

And it will be with a gp as no nurses working then. She's a madam bulldog extraordinaire and getting appointments is like a Herculean quest so i think she will really get me one then. And as she clocked who I am I think she realized I wasn't just whining when I said I getting to the surgery is really hard and I didn't know what to do.

So although waiting til wed, I will keep an eye on it (and post here) so if it gets worse quickly I will deal with it earlier.

Btw I don't think I do have diabetes, but I have veins that don't work properly so have a lovely cycle of blood pressure plunging followed by heart going crazy to get it up then blood pressure soaring, heart stops being tachycardic and repeat. Usually wear very sexy medical grade support stockings / tights to help with veins, which I can't get on at the mo due to annoying toe.

However, blood pressure has gone bonkers, and not quite sure why. It's measuring rather high and actually has been since January but it kept on being put down to white coat effect/ anxiety/ being on the up bit of the low/high blood pressure cycle.

Was only because one of the many drugs am on was flagged for a new side effect (raised blood pressure & cardiac arrest!) that anyone realized there may be an issue. And who knows whether it's the drug or something else as no one recorded the other scores as they were all considered 'one offs'. Argh!

So, in short, it's good someone's taking notice now. I'm shit at getting anyone to help me.

Thank goodness you've got an appointment. Several years ago I had a similar problem and held off going to the doctors for ages because I didn't think it was the sort of problem I needed to bother him with.

Eventually I had no choice, as I couldn't even bear the duvet to touch it let alone wear shoes with a toe in. It looked just like yours and was an ingrowing toenail that needed antibiotics to try and clear the infection before treatment could begin. For some reason rather than have the nail removed straightaway I chose to try and save it and spent weeks seeing a podiatrist.

With hindsight this was a huge mistake as eventually I had no choice but to have it removed. This procedure was virtually painless, far less painful than all the time I spent in the podiatrist's chair whilst she tried to cut bits away from the side. Unfortunately for me the infection was so entrenched that I needed very many courses of antibiotics afterwards and it took a lot longer than normal to heal.

Nothing will persuade me that it wasn't the prolonged infection and all the antibiotics that caused the chronic fatigue I suffered after. I was so ill that in the end I had no choice but to give up a job I loved. Up until then you could have counted on one hand the number of days off work I'd had.

Thankfully I'm almost back to normal now and if if you looked at my toe you wouldnt know I'd had the nail removed. Learn from my mistakes OP and if it is an ingrowing toenail get to dealt with asap.

Hope it's ok to post photos. This was toe the day I posted (14th)... It hurt a lot more than it looked!

And here's it was last night. I photoed it after posting here to say it was getting better & pus under nail had gone, but actually in the photo lighting you can see it's still there.

Milly how did the nail grow back? And did they give you any local anaesthetic before the nail got gone?

Ugh. Shudders. I've got a thing about nails I think.

Go to the doctor. You don't want to have infections on your feet. You need to get it treated, You need to be sure there are no underlying problems.

Misc, you've got to be more assertive about your health. You probably realise after all these replies that a problem isn't "ridiculous" because it's to do with a toe. My neighbour had his leg amputated up to the knee last month because he ignored an infected toe. I'm not trying to be gruesome. He's 60 and did know he had diabetes and heart problems, but still didn't take the toe seriously. It didn't hurt much because his nerves are affected.

It sounds as if you may not even have a home BP monitor. They cost about £12. If your BP is so unstable and it's so hard to get to the GP and then get them to record your BP properly , shouldn't you at least be recording it yourself ?

You sound sort of grateful that you may get an appt next week ! You've got to make more fuss - who's going to look out for you and your child if you can't ?

If you can get to the chemist ( before the govt closes many of them down ) the pharmacist will look at your toe in private, and tell you if this is an emergency.

OP if you looked at my toe nails now I'd bet good money that you wouldn't be able to tell which one had been done. They don't remove the whole nail just a strip down the side, and somehow the rest of the nail seems to have spread to cover where it was taken from.

Once the anaesthetic went in my toe I didn't feel a thing - honestly. I'm not squeamish and watched the whole procedure and it was really strange not have any pain or discomfort. It took next to no time.

When I left the surgery I could have walked home because it was so well anaesthetised. I took regular paracetamol until the next day when I had to go back and get it re dressed, but sadly it was after this that it all went downhill for me.

I'm not saying yours is an I ingrowing toe nail, but if it is don't do as I did - bite the bullet and get it removed as quickly as you can.

My toe looked like that when i got the ab cream (did u try a phone appt btw?) And it took a couple of weeks. I soaked it and reopened it a few times as well but when i had the ab cream to apply

Importantly though if that red skin keeps spreading, it can be a sign the infection is spreading and will get into the blood - cellulitis - very very serious. So keep a close eye. Do you have a walk in centre?

Cellulitus.
& infections cropping up in the feet can be a sign of diabetes. Potentially very serious. If it turns out not to be serious you have nothing to loose by having asked.

Thanks again everyone, really helped me monitor it and give me resolve to keep pushing for medical care.

Am suffering a lot from yesterday, a very painful day with much overdoing it. The promised appointment didn't happen - noooo appointment when I phoned, just the same old dismissive ness :( I didn't let them fob me off (completely) though and a message was left for a gp and I was told they'd phone me if they considered it important enough.

So after loads of energy draining got penicillin prescription and a message that I should see if anyone was around or passing through when I went in for the other appointment, and ask if they could have a quick look at the toe to check it wasn't serious. Which they did so glad about that.

I'm knackered, in pain and f*cked off as the 24 blood pressure test was a waste of time and has left me ill as trying to make it work til 3am last night and went waaay past any physical limits and abilities I have.

So at least I got the toe dealt with, I hope, said I should see a difference in 24-48 hrs.

Btw here's the toe now, not a clue whether it's better or same?

Sorry it's kind of side on as was trying to get the yellowy patches on the tip of the toe...

Get yourself to the GP it's not going to clear up by itself It could be an infected nail bed. Please don't delay.

If I was at my GP for a blood test I would have shown the nurse and been squeezed in. If you can't get an appointment just turn up in sandals,no receptionist is going to turn you away. You really need to be more proactive OP it needs attention. Foot problems are not always minor and the longer you leave it the more serious it is likely to be. Would you leave a child's foot like this ? It's important to look after your self. Let us know how you get on

Sorry OP I didn't see your last two posts. Though I'm surprised the surgery prescribed antibiotics without seeing you. Hope it feels more comfortable soon. Any redness is infection Go back to GP if you are unsure

Are you keeping a plaster on it all the time? It needs to breathe and be dressed properly. PLEASE see at the very least a pharmacist TODAY.

It warrants an emergency appointment.

No about half & half - plasters on for getting out of the house, I can't put a shoe on it properly, and people tend to edge away when they see your weeping sores! I got rained on lots over the last few days and it really hurts when rain is drumming down on it (on mobility scooter so feet an open & static target for the rain!). Owww.

I showed it to the person taking bloods last week but she said it wasn't her job and just that it might skew the blood tests which isn't good. Explained the difficulty in getting appointments & getting in for appointments but she was sympathetic more than spurred to action. Everyone is always so stretched that it's never anyone's job or within their ability to help. And I'm too ill to kick up a fuss over & over and over again. You need to be well to do that.

This whole thing has made me realize how inaccessible it all is for me. I'm used to not getting healthcare because I'm too ill to access it, but of course the irony is, the more I can't get to it, the less it looks like I need healthcare as I look weller than I am from their records :( Not quite sure what to do about that though? But I do need to do something.

I'm on flucloxacillin 500mg x4 a day, which according to the leaflet is twice the normal dose. Not sure what that means though, except they're ruddy difficult to swallow! Causing stomach to revolt, but I guess I should expect that as they're added to the usual 26-30 tablets a day.

Gosh I'm whining today. I'm fed up of it all.

Kicks self up arse, stop with the whining woman!

Toe's hurting less which is a good sign I think? DS keeps jumping on it, stamping on it, kicking it, rolling on it, or grabbing it, so I've had plenty of opportunity to test its reaction to stimuli!