17 Mar 6 things to consider BEFORE you have INGROWN TOENAIL REMOVAL
If you are considering having ingrown toenail surgery, there are a few questions that you should ask to ensure that you are getting the best treatment available.
- What training have you undertaken for this procedure? The amount of training varies between professions. Podiatrists undertake extensive university and on-job training on nail surgery including correct injection techniques nail removal, phenolisation and wound dressing. At our Ingrown Toenail Clinic, every podiatrist MUST be supervised for their first 20 surgeries before they are assessed to graduate and perform a surgery on their own when they pass our strict protocols. We take surgery very seriously and we make sure that we are following best practice at all times.
- How many surgeries have you undertaken and how often? Like everything, some podiatrists have more experience than others. Some will do multiple surgeries a week whilst others can go months or even years without performing a surgery.
- What redressing and follow-up care do you provide? Some clinics will do the surgery and discharge you for self-care. We will certainly NOT do this. We follow our patients very closely with 2 to 3 redressing appointments in the first 2 weeks, then a 3-month check and a 6-month check.
- Which technique do you perform and do you use phenol? Some clinics do partial nail avulsions (PNA’s) whilst others do wedge resections/winograd procedures. Some clinics also use phenol to cauterise the nail root as a secondary measure to reduce re-growth.
- What is your regrowth rate? This is an important question because different procedures, surgeons and clinics have differing results. We keep a close eye on our statistics at our 3 and 6-month checks as this is the only way to know accurate regrowth rates. Without these checks, it’s impossible to know if the nail did regrow. We often have to cut back the old nail at the 3 and 6-month checks to ensure the new nail coming through can grow correctly. We keep a close eye on the nail as it grows out over the first 6 months of the surgery. After 15 years of doing surgeries, we find that we have less than 10% chance of re-growth but we still like to say 10% as there is always a risk. The literature varies but we try to give accurate and realistic outcomes with a 10% regrowth rate.
- Are Podiatrists doctors? Podiatrists are not medical doctors but are allowed to call themselves doctors. We do not call ourselves doctors as we find this deceiving. We believe the term Dr should be reserved for Medical Doctors and those with a PHd. In saying that, we see many more ingrown toenails than most doctors in their lives and we have 6 Podiatrists performing multiple surgeries each week.
If you would like to come in for a FREE ingrown toenail assessment, check out this page HERE.
