Causes of Foot Pain-Bruised and Thick Toe Nails
How Do You Get A Bruised Toe Nail
One of the many reasons people seek a chiropodist or podiatrist for foot pain, include bruised toenails. Bruised toenails can happen from repetitive trauma to the nails. This injury is commonly found in runners or hikers. This toenail injury can also happen to those who wear tight fitting shoes like high heels, to those who kick a ball like soccer or football or even rock climbers.
This type of injury is a repetitive foot injury where the toenails hit the end of the shoe over and over. This causes a subungual hematoma, which is a blood blister under the nail. The nail also responds to trauma by thickening. When the nail thickens, that can become a perpetual issue. A thick nail can dig into the sides of the skin around your nail, pinching and causing pain. If the nail continues to become injured, skin can become hard around the nail. That can stunt the growth and also contribute to the thickening of the nail.
What to Do About A Bruised Toenail
Not only can footwear cause issues with toenails, but if socks that are too tight, that can also lead to microtrauma of the nails. That is why I suggest slightly tugging the end of the sock, to make sure the sock does not pull back on the toes and toenails when you put your shoe on and while running. Some sport medicine textbooks advise a met pad to help prevent the toes from hyperextending.
Buying footwear that properly fits, is also very important. Toe caps can help blunt the pain, but sometimes I find it takes up more room and can add more pressure onto the nail.
In very painful conditions, you may need to have the nail gently drilled from a foot specialist to alleviate the pressure from the blood under the nail. In cases where the toe nail injury has been there for a while, the blood will be dried and drilling is not needed. Thinning the nail out will help in this situation.
What really helps to prevent this issue, is to keep the nails neat and tidy! Another important factor is wearing footwear that has enough room in the toe box. That means keeping them trimmed and filed. If you have troubles cutting the nails, seeing a podiatrist or chiropodist will help you. Filing the nails as thin and best as best as you can will help. If you cannot cut the nails. Not only is the thickness the issue, but getting the corners and nail sulus neat and tidy is also important!
Keeping regular appointments to keep the nails growing properly will help reduce pain and prevent thickening of the nails. From personal experience, as a runner, the regular upkeep of nails was the only thing that helped me!
