Ingrown Toenail Removal

Our consultant has over 30-years’ experience in painless and safe removal of ingrown toe nails. Using partial resection of the nail by chemical ablation (phenolisation) or surgical removal (nail wedge resection), the surgery is normally undertaken as a day case surgery under a local anaesthetic and takes around 10-15 minutes to perform. Taking a day or two off work afterwards is advisable.

What is an ingrown toe nail?

This is where the side of the nail punctures the soft-tissue fold (nail sulcus) causing pain and chronic inflammation. The body will see the nail as a "foreign body" like a spell or splinter and tries to destroy it, which sets up a chronic inflammatory response. This is seen as swelling and reddening of the soft tissue (inflammation). Infection is quite common but antibiotic treatment needs to be combined with removal of the ingrown nail for successful resolution.

Ingrown Toenail Surgery

There are two main types of procedure in common use. One involves removing the nail section and applying a chemical (phenol) to destroy the nail producing tissue. This is called a partial nail avulsion. The other involves removing a section of the nail and inflamed tissue (nail wedge resection). In our practice, both are utilized but generally we prefer to use the nail wedge resection because healing is much faster than with chemical ablation. Both carry the same types of risks such as infection and regrowth of nail (nail spicule); but these are less than 5%.