Can Ingrown Nail Cause Numbness

While the almost common descriptors of ingrown toenails from our patients include painful, frustrating, uncomfortable, annoying, excruciating, tin can't-wearable-shoes-anymore and can't-slumber-at-night , we recently had a patient call in to book an appointment because he'd had an ingrown toenail for a couple of weeks now, and alongside some pain and discomfort, it was feeling quite numb .

Meeting him at the clinic, nosotros discussed that he'd tried looking up online whether numbness, specially around one side of his big toe, was normal or if it could be a sign of something more sinister – with no luck at all from Dr. Google. And then today, our podiatrists at the Auckland Ingrown Toenail Clinic thought nosotros'd answer this question for anyone else stuck in the same gunkhole: Is numbness normal in ingrown toenails?

No, we don't usually look your toe to feel numb

First affair's first: in our experience, numbness is non on the 'typical' or 'expected' list for mutual symptoms associated with ingrown toenails. Nosotros expect feelings of pain, swelling, redness, bleeding, and even articulate/yellow discharge if an infection is present, because given that a piece of boom is currently piercing into your skin, these are all fairly normal responses from your torso.

Your body wants to stimulate quick healing and directly your immune cells to the site to fight off infection or prevent information technology – and hence your toe swells and becomes ruby with the increased blood flow. The action of the boom piercing the pare is painful, and whatsoever additional pressure to the area from shoes or bed sheets will exacerbate the pain. This is all expected.

Numbness, on the other manus, is a ' neural symptom ', significant that it starts from a trouble or intermission in one of the nerves in your foot, leg or back that and then, instead of delivering clear messages of sensation or hurting to your brain, provides a numb feeling. Is the cause of the nerve interruption having your boom pierce the skin? It's unlikely – peculiarly given that the trouble is at the tip of the toe, and if your whole toe is numb, we'd expect the nerve pause/damage to occur farther up the toe or foot.

But, it's definitely possible

With that said, it could be that your toe is so intensely swollen – and you'll know if this is happening to y'all – that all the extra fluid and force per unit area in your toe is pressing on a nerve and creating those neural symptoms, which can include numbness, pins and needles, burning, tingling and more than. So we're not ruling it out completely or proverb that it doesn't happen, it's only not the 'norm'. If this is the case, the numbness would exist very localised to the tip of that toe – and wouldn't extend far down the toe, the foot, or to the other toes. That's merely due to the fashion our nerves piece of work and give sensation to different areas of the anxiety.

It could be the symptoms of 2 problems, simultaneously

It may well exist that the numbness y'all're feeling is a symptom of another problem, that just so happens to exist affecting your problematic ingrown toe, as well every bit potentially other parts of your feet or legs. There are a number of causes of numbness in the toes and feet, including:

Diabetes – this is the virtually common crusade, and arises because, over time, diabetes causes harm to our nerves, which leads to a problem called peripheral neuropathy – which causes numbness and other neural symptoms in our feet. It tin can too ultimately lead to the complete absence of awareness, then you've got to exist very careful
Arthritis – whether information technology'southward rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis or gout, if you've got arthritis in the joints of your feet, particularly at your large toe, and particularly if yous've got some notable swelling happening, then this may be compressing the nerves in your feet and resulting in numbness in the big toe
A new injury – following similar principles to arthritis, if yous've recently injured your human foot, whether it'southward a muscle, tissue or os, and you lot've still got some new or lingering swelling, it may be compressing a nerve and causing your numbness. Or the injury itself may have damaged a nerve, resulting in the same symptoms
It's winter, and the blood vessels in your feet have constricted – a less common but possible cause is vasoconstriction, meaning the narrowing of the claret vessels, in your feet. Cold is a large cause of this, equally our body wants to minimise heat loss and and then our blood vessels constrict. The effect is decreased blood menses, particularly at the tips of the toes, which leads to problems like Raynaud'south, frostbite and more. If this is the case, you'll also likely notice your feet feel quite cold, and may be white and patchy
Apportionment problems – post-obit on from the in a higher place, yous may just have apportionment bug, and the aforementioned process is happening, except that the weather isn't the crusade, but it's the changes or harm to the blood vessels creating the problem
It'south your bunion (if you take one) – finally, information technology could be related to the joint changes y'all're experiencing in the large toe joint at the ball of the foot direct related to your bunion

It'south a articulate indicator that you demand to treat your ingrown toenail – equally your risks increase

Any the reason, one matter that's definitely for sure is that you need to have your ingrown toenail treated ASAP. We rely on our body's power to feel to inform united states of america of then much – including when things are going incorrect, which we feel as pain. If the numbness is taking over to the indicate where instead of pain, nosotros feel numb, then our body isn't alerted to the problems we may be experiencing – including ingrown toenails. This puts you at risk of your smash significantly worsening, developing an infection, or even a secondary infection (which is when information technology gets pretty bad!), and yous being unable to detect it due to the numbness. When you don't detect it, y'all don't know that you need to treat information technology – and so the problem worsens.

It's a vicious and unsafe cycle, and the long story brusque is that if you have an ingrown toenail and you're getting whatever numbness, reduce your risks and have your ingrown toenail treated ASAP. Almost ingrown toenails do not become meliorate on their own , and then for most people, they are merely delaying the inevitable.

Uncertain every bit to what's happening with your toe?

Nosotros're hither to help. We're Auckland'southward leading ingrown toenail experts, and offer a number of solutions for painful, frustrating and numb ingrown toenails, including options to fix the problem permanently using a minor surgical procedure.

For any questions, or to book an appointment with our team, requite us a call on 09 523 2333 or book online . We're located within the One Health Clinic in Remuera, inside Perform Podiatry.

Can Ingrown Nail Cause Numbness,

Source: https://ingrowntoenail.co.nz/is-my-ingrown-toenail-causing-my-toe-to-feel-numb/#:~:text=No%2C%20we%20don't%20usually%20expect%20your%20toe%20to%20feel%20numb&text=Your%20body%20wants%20to%20stimulate,with%20the%20increased%20blood%20flow.

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