Fungal nail (known as Onychomycosis) is the same fungal infection as Athlete’s Foot. The infection can infect any part of your nail, including your nail plate, bed and root, as well as the skin around the nail, between the toes and on the skin of the foot.  The infection starts off as a white or yellow spot or spike within the nail, eventually spreading on the whole nail, to cause thickening, crumbling, brittleness and discolouration. The infection can spread to other toe nails and if left untreated can cause permanent damage to the nail. Fungal nail infections are contagious and are easy to catch in places where you’re barefoot such as changing rooms and swimming pools, or sharing contaminated towels clothing or nail scissors. They are also more common in people with sweaty feet or who don’t dry between the toes thoroughly. 

How can it be correctly diagnosed?

Although clinical/visual diagnosis is correct 60% of the time, this figure is much improved by using a new and reliable system called ‘Diafactory testing’. This super cedes microscopy/culture which traditionally diagnosed fungal nail but was not always accurate and took a long time to process. The ‘Diafactory’ system gives immediate results, with 98% accuracy and it can be done within the clinic session. 

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Treatment Options

The infected nails can be left untreated, without ill effect. However, there are good reasons to treat the infection, The infection will never clear ‘on its own’ and can spread to other nails and parts of the body. It can also look 'unsightly' and cause thickening of the nails.

There are a variety of treatment options, which the podiatrist will discuss with you carefully because the choice of treatment will depend upon medical history, the extent and type of infection. The choices are:-

1) Oral prescription drugs prescribed by the GP and/or 

2) Nail Fenestration or 'opening up the nail' either with microholes, general debridement, chemicals  or non-permanent nail removal techniques. Over-the-counter nail treatments, used alone without any nail fenestration have very limited success because they cannot pass through the nail to the nail bed where the live fungus lives. Following fenestration, a selected antifugal cream will be applied. Finally there will be a recommended personalised routine of ongoing daily at-home applications. The amount 8 weekly podiatry sessions required can take from 1 to up to 10 months. The podiatrist will visually monitor progress  to check that healthy nail is beginning to grow through at the base, until there is no trace of the infection left.  The testing kit can be used to confirm this.

​3) Nail Removal under local anaesthetics to completely open up the nail bed, Suitable for infection which has spread to the root of the nail. A new nail will be able to regrow following removal. This procedure is only suitable for certain types of infection but is one of the most effective methods of removing the fungus for good. ​