Ingrown, Groooaaann!

We encouraged him not to watch, but he kept peeking...until he saw blood that is!

Notice I sat behind the doctor who was kindly blocking my view from the whole thing. Praise God!

One of Jeremiah's not-so-fun summer memories involved his battle with ingrown toenails. He has struggled with these on and off for the last year or so. By the time we noticed one forming, it was weeks into the process and already infected. Jeremiah has a pretty high pain tolerance and he never told us his toe hurt.

Sometimes I could get them out with just clippers and peroxide, but twice we had to take him to the pediatric after hours ER to have his toe nummbed and them cut out. He handled it better than we did! Seeing them cut down his nail bed to remove the nail and then getting the bill for $200 per toe was very painful indeed!

We waited until school was out and then took him to a podiatrist to see about taking care of the ingrown nails for once and for all. On our initial visit, where I thought we would just be meeting the doctor and he would be assessing Jerry, he proclaimed that he was going to permanently remove the outsides and insides of two toes on his one foot...THAT DAY! And so we decided why prolong the inevitable and build on the anxiety and we went for it. It only took about twenty minutes or so from beginning (prep and numbing) to end (wrapping and getting aftercare kit).

I had this procedure done when I was about fourteen and it was much more barbaric with a much longer recovery time. Back then, they cut into your toe near the cuticle to remove the root of the nail. Today they simply apply some liquid to burn the root near the cuticle so it never grows back. And I had to wear open-toed shoes for months after the procedure and soak my foot a few times a day. Jeremiah had no such instructions. We could soak it for the pain if it made him feel better, but he didn't have to in order to keep it clean and from infection.

Four weeks after the first foot, we went back to have the two toes on his other foot done. He was such a trooper. The worst was the first 24 hours after the procedure. Foot #1 taught us that we really needed the doctor to call in something stronger than just Ibuprofen for him since every pain is so much worse at night and that's when the numbing shots wore off. There was absolutely no sleeping that night. He was miserable. He couldn't lay still because of the pain and so he paced, which of course made his toe hurt even more. It was pathetic. I called the doctor at 6 am the next day and had him call in Tylenol with Codeine. After his first dose, he finally fell asleep and slept the majority of that next day. Thankfully, we had enough of the Rx left over for the second foot and began giving him the meds as soon as we got home from his appointment. We stayed on top of it all night and, by the next afternoon, he was med-free and good to go.

The worst part of the healing process had to be that he couldn't go swimming for three weeks after each foot. That was pretty much the majority of his summer, but we made the best of it and squeezed in a few Adventure Island days when we could.

I am sad to say that now another toenail on his one foot is becoming ingrown on both sides and so I fear another trip to the podiatrist is in his future. We likely won't be able to wait until next summer to take care of it so may have to plan it for a Friday afternoon so he has the weekend to recover before going back to school on Monday.

Adventure Island at last!