at what point do bruised and gammy toe nails merit a trip to the doctors?

[hatwoman]

my toe nails are in an appalling state after doing the marathon on sunday. the prize for the worst goes to the two nails with blisters around them and under them - which are oozing. yuck. they are also extremely painful. ie can't wear normal shoes and have been dosing up on paracetamol. I never knew blisters and bruises could hurt this much. do I just have to grin and bear this self-inflicted pain until it goes away or should I go to the docs?

Congratulations on the marathon!

I'm not sure there's much that can be done tbh. Probably bathing them in salt water with some teatree and lavender oil would help.

I'm just worried that the ooze and the pain means they're infected. I hadn;t thought of salt water. will try that.

also I'm going on holiday on saturday and the last thing I want to do is for them to get worse and end up spending a day of my hols negotiating my way round an Italian hospital

Are they hot and red and is the ooze pus like? If so, they are infected and you should go to the GP.

If not, they're probably just knackered from the running. Can you wear flip-flops at the mo? Getting the air to them will help as well.

Oh, and I'm not a hp by the way, but I have had infected toes before (in-grown toenail) and they were hot, red and pusy (attractive!)

My DP, who does a lot of running, rugby, etc has a gruesome, yet effective and pain relieving way of dealing with bruises under nails.

Take a metal paperclip, straighten it out, then heat it with the gas hob (whilst holding it with an oven glove obviously) and use the hot end to burn a small hole through your nail over the bruise! It might take several attempts to burn through the nail, and a lot of blood will come out when you do get through, but it will instantly relieve the pressure and so the pain. Apparently, this method does not hurt at all

Slap some anti-septic cream on the nail to block up the hole after all the gunk has come out.

ooh that sounds rather drastic ivegottheshirt?

i'm in the same post marathon, sore toes boat. If they're sore then best bet is the salt water thing - as hot as you can take it - that'll kill any infection. the 'oozing' is probably just because the blister under the toenail has burst so as long as you keep them clean there's no reason why they should get infected?

In my experience, they dry up after a few days - and the toenail will probably be tender and may even come off eventually, but don't really think it's anything to bother the doctor with?