I have discomfort from an ingrown toenail (manly at the base of the toe, not the nail curling over at the end). I went to a recommended podiatrist and they cleaned up the area (cut back the nail a bit, removed a lot of hardened skin/corn which did make the area feel better but the core issue is still there. They noted we they could easily surgically remove the side of the nail, put some acid in there to keep the base from growing back for a ‘real’ solution. They noted the recovery time was 4-6 weeks… ie no intense swim bike or run during that time. It struck me as a really long recovery time for that but I dont have any experience so looking for comment.
I’m not in pain when doing these activities (or have been over the past months), I will from time to time feel pressure/pain on the area but it doesnt keep me from doing anything. I just wanted to get it cleaned up to be ‘ready to go’ with full on training. I have IM Vichy at the end of August and my thought is either, do it right now, take the hit on down time and then dive into training or push through and deal with it post Vichy. If the recovery time is generally much less than the 4-6 weeks and they were over egging it would make my decision a lot easier.
Any comment/experience on ingrown toe surgery recovery would be appreciated. Thank you!
Ok, so I’ve had surgery twice for it, albeit 25+ years ago. Both times were for both big toes (3 out of 4 ‘sides’ in total of the 2x toes where they grew in to the side and then end of the toes).
1st surgery was under a general anaesthetic in a hospital. Obvs ended up being unsuccessful as they grew back.
2nd was a local anaesthetic, done by a chiropodist.
I was struggling to kick a football hard, or properly play sports like Badminton and squash where there was a lot of direction changes etc. Just too painful.
From memory (it was half a lifetime ago) I recollect the 4-6 weeks sounds right from the general anaesthetic surgery I had (the problem returned about 6 months later) But defo had quicker recovery from the localised (2nd) work which just seemed much less intrusive - e.g. I couldn’t walk out after the 1st, whereas I defo walked out of the clinic unaided from the ‘local’ 2nd one (where as you say the guy treated the nail root to stop it re-growing where the problem was). I think I was back doing much stuff after a couple of weeks, and the limiting factor was just making sure I didn’t get it dirty and infected for the first few weeks until it was fully healed (I did a lot of white water kayaking as well as football etc so needed to not get my feet wet with mud or wet in any manky rivers etc). I guess that for you, it will be the swimming that comes back last to avoid infection, unless you can get a reliable way of ‘sealing’ the toes / foot.
Best of luck.
I can’t imagine having general anesthetic for an ingrown toenail, that must have been a one heck of a problem toe.
I’ve had two done, in my case they just novocaine the toe, cut off the side of the toe and put some chemical (silver nitrate?) on the nail been to stop the nail growing back, as above poster said. They talked about cutting away the skin that folded over the side of the nail and caused the issue, but that seems to be for more extreme cases. In my case I took the rest of the day off and was back on the bike the next day. Wasn’t running or swimming at the time so can’t comment there.
The 4-6 weeks sounds like a best practice given by a doctor for a general population. By all means listen to the doctor, but I would also let them know your training history and how little of an effect bike rides may have. My thought is if you crash and have somewhat knarly open road rash, you would never take 4-6 weeks off to let it heal. I can understand staying away from swimming for hygiene of the pool, and running should probably be self regulating.
Not the same but had Morton’s neuroma surgery 2 years ago and I was back riding indoors with pressure on my mid foot/heel 10 days after surgery. But at that point I still had stitches. I was back “running†5 weeks after then started a full run program 7 weeks post surgery. Sadly going in for another foot surgery this week so hoping the recovery will be the same. Already having a breakdown about not running for so long!
I had side of big toe go ingrown and become infected - swollen, red, leaking puss. Was a few (ie 20) years ago
I had a chiropodist hack it out and it was bloody sore. This was on the morning before I set off on a 4 day MTB bikepacking trip.
My toe/leg hasn’t fallen off yet, so I think I got away with it, and I don’t remember her telling me to not to do stuff. As I say, this was on the side though.
I’ve also had it done when I was a teenager (over 20 years ago now), left big toe. It got really inflamed when I went XC skiing with poorly-fitted boots, and they ended up needing to remove about 3-4mm off the right edge of the toenail . Procedure was done under a local anaesthetic. I had some minor complications during the recovery as the dressing was applied too tight and cut off the circulation (boy, did THAT hurt when they removed the dressing!), and it also got infected, but in the end it healed up okay. I don’t remember exactly how long it took before I could do stuff, but 4-6 weeks seems like a minimum, and I was on crutches for a week or two after the surgery.
One thing worth keeping in mind - make sure you keep the toe moving (flexion/extension) during the recovery and strengthen your flexors and tib post properly once you can bear weight again, particularly if it’s your big toe. Your big toe is really important for medial stability through the stance phase of running, and if it’s been ‘injured’ (through the surgery and subsequent unweighting) you may find your body starts ‘protecting’ it and you end up overpronating, causing other issues. I didn’t start running/triathlon until 7-8 years after my surgery, but I have had seemingly endless lower/medial calf injuries for the whole time and only in recent years discovered my big toe wasn’t ‘planting’ properly on footstrike (FHL not firing properly), likely as a result of this historical injury. Custom orthotic inserts, along with lots of specific strength/proprioception and soft tissue work have been required to finally get on top of it, but I’m sure much of this could have been avoided had I rehabbed it correctly in the first place.
Regarding your IM - August is still a long way off so if it were me I’d get the surgery now - I wouldn’t want it hampering my ability to do the big run weeks at the peak of my build, or potentially causing problems during the race (Vichy is a pretty tough course from what I understand).