What Is Nail Fungus And Its Treatment?
Like all fungus diseases, nail fungus is also a contagious disease. Nail fungus can appear in the hand or in foot nails. It has many varieties and appears in different ways in the nails of a person. Different people display different symptoms of this disease. It is more often found in foot nails as compared to the hand nails. The reason is that fungus develops and multiplies the most in dark and humid conditions and feet remain covered with shoes and socks, resulting in optimum conditions.
The symptoms of nail fungus are discolouring of the nail, appearance of black, brown or blue shadows on the nail. The change of thickness of the nail is another important symptom. Extremely foul smell from feet when the shoes are removed is a certain indication of existence of fungus. In acute cases the patient may have extreme pain in the affected toes and often he or she finds it difficult to wear shoes or even walk. Sometimes blood may also ooze out of nails at points near cuticles. In the worst cases the nail will crack or parts of the nail will start chipping off, and ultimately the whole nail will be detached. This is a very painful condition.
Whenever any person notices any of the symptoms mentioned above it is essential to immediately contact the physician and start treatment. Just like it takes a lot of time to detect the appearance of fungus, similarly it takes a lot for time for the effect of the treatment to be noticeable. The treatment can be administration of pills or use of some antibacterial cream for local application. For faster treatment, in addition to the medicines, as far as possible discontinue wearing shoes, and wear open sandals instead. This way you will not be providing optimum conditions to the bacteria to multiply and during the day your feet will remain exposed to light without humidity.
As already mentioned this disease is very contagious and spreads from one to another person at a fast pace. As a consideration to fellow humans it becomes your duty to avoid spreading it. Bacteria spread very fast in water so avoid using bath tub or swimming pool used by others. The bath tub should be disinfected after your use. Do not go to your beautician for pedicure as the expert there will be touching your nails both with hands and instruments which she will use on others, thus spreading bacteria.