The short answer is, yes it can come back!  Fungal infections can be difficult to eradicate, and because they are contagious, they can recur.  The good news is there are steps you can take to lessen your chances of reinfection.

Fungus & feet

Fungus likes to live where it’s warm, dark and moist!  Our socks and shoes are the perfect environment for fungus to flourish and infect the nails and skin.  Sweaty feet or a compromised immune system can both increase a person’s risk for developing a fungal infection.

Fungus & nails

Also known as onychomycosis (on-ih-koh-my-KOH-sis), fungal toenails can be uncomfortable, thickened, misshapen, discoloured, crumbly and smelly.  Onychomycosis can be a source of embarrassment and insecurity and can even lead to skin breakdown due to excess pressure on the nail bed.  Toenail fungus is evident in the nail plate or the toenail itself, but the infection resides underneath in the nail bed.

Fungus & Skin

Athlete’s foot is a fungal infection of the skin and is also known as tinea pedis.  Athlete’s foot can occur anywhere on the foot but is especially common in between the toes and on the bottoms of the feet where the moisture level tends to be higher.  A fungal infection on the bottom of the foot is known as moccasin tinea pedis as it typically covers the sole and sides of the foot like a moccasin or slipper.  The skin is typically itchy and may appear dry, scaly or may peel and is often mistaken for dry skin. The skin in between toes may be white, peeling, cracked, itchy, have a burning or stinging sensation, and can even appear inflamed.

Steps you can take to keep fungus from coming back:

1. Wear something on your feet when in public spaces, such as pools and change rooms.
2. Wear a fresh, clean pair of socks daily and if feet are sweaty, change socks when necessary, even midday.
3. Moisturize your feet regularly with an emollient or skin softener, to keep your skin intact and free of cracks and dry fissures; avoid the skin in between the toes.
4. Avoid sharing foot care tools, such as nail clippers or files.
5. Wash feet daily and make sure to dry well in between the toes.
6. Make sure your shoes fit well and accommodate all of your toes.
7. Allow shoes to air out between wears.
8. Choose shoes that are made out of natural fibres and are breathable.
9. Spray the inside of shoes with disinfectant spray to kill microorganisms.
10. Consider using a light disinfection system, such as ShoeZap or SteriShoe, to keep fungus at bay inside your shoes. Visit Shop.bioped.com
11. If you’ve had a fungal toenail infection and it was treated with photodynamic/photodisinfection light therapy, maintenance sessions are important.
    1. This involves visiting a BioPed medical footcare clinician every 2 months for 6-12 months.

Call or Book for a Consultation

If you think you might have a fungal infection of your skin or nails, give your local BioPed a call today to find out how we can help you and your feet!  To find a BioPed Registered Chiropodist or Advanced Footcare Nurse, visit www.bioped.com/locations.

Stub, bang, bend, snag or crush! Our toes are exposed and out there, making them easy targets for injury.  If you injure a toe, there is something you can do at home to quicken healing…buddy taping. Buddy taping involves taping an injured toe to an adjacent toe, and if done properly, it can effectively stabilize the toe allowing it to heal.

A toe injury occurs when there is harm, disruption, or trauma to its anatomy. The anatomy of a toe includes bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, fat and skin. Trauma can cause damage to one or all of these structures.

All injuries require rest and protection. A toe injury typically takes 2-6 weeks to heal but this depends on the extent of trauma and injury.

How do you know if your toe injury is a bad one?

• Pain
• Swelling
• Stiffness
• Colour change/Bruising
• Different position

Tips for buddy taping:

Little toes usually heal quickly if taped to the toe beside it but buddy taping should only be used on a minor injury involving a little toe.

• Use zinc oxide or athletic tape
• Place a piece of gauze or cotton baton between the toes beforehand for padding
• Do not apply tape to broken skin
• Start taping at the base of the toe and progress towards the end
• Apply tape snug enough to support the toes against each other
• After taping, press on the tip of your toes for a few seconds and then release. Colour should return to normal. It’s an important step to ensure they’re not taped too tightly.
• Remove taping when at rest

It is best to seek medical attention if you’ve injured your big toe. It may require casting, more robust splinting, reduction or even surgery.

Buddy taping can help with healing, but it’s also important to take a look at the shoes you’re wearing.   Footwear that’s flimsy and soft under foot, or bends too easily, does not provide enough support and protection for injured toes and our feet in general.  It is crucial to wear supportive footwear inside and outside.  Additionally, the toe box of a shoe should be wide and deep enough to accommodate any swelling that has developed due to an injury.

Contact your primary care provider or your BioPed lower limb clinician if you have any of the following:

• An open wound or bleeding
• A crooked or bent toe
• Numbness or tingling
• Sudden increase in pain or swelling
• Fever or chills
• Significant bruising

Each of these signs and symptoms indicate a more serious issue and requires immediate medical attention. If your toe isn’t showing signs of healing 1-2 weeks after the injury occurred, follow up with your primary care provider or your BioPed lower limb clinician. You may need further investigative tests to determine the best next steps. We will help alleviate your foot pain with high integrity solutions to empower you to do more in life!

With weddings, garden parties, and barbecues on the rise as summer ramps up, we have many events where we want to look and feel our best. One way we keep ourselves looking together is with a nice pedicure. However, when we want to make it last for a week of vacation and a weekend wedding we tend to choose the longer lasting pedicure solution: shellac.

Once in a while shellac can be a nice treat for your feet, however with overuse and application it can suffocate your natural nail bed, leading to brittle, thin, dry, and cracking toenails that cause more pain than pleasure with their appearance. Luckily, we’ve compiled some solutions to getting your nail health and moisture level back.

What to Watch for after Having Shellac Nails

Brittle or cracking nails – Under the layers of shellac, the nail bed has weakened and becomes dry, and brittle. It will remain this way until new, healthy nail grows and repopulates. If additional layers of shellac continue to be applied with each pedicure, the new healthy nail, becomes dry and brittle also.

Flaky and weak nails – Many opt for picking the remaining shellac off, instead of paying to have it removed via acetone soaking. This tearing away of the already compromised nail, removes healthy nails, leading to breaking and further damage. This makes the process of growing healthy nails again take longer.

 Sore nail beds – This one is common anytime we finish a long period of shellac on the nails. When the outer barrier between the world and our natural nail bed is removed it can leave the natural nail exposed, damaged, and sore. The removal of the shellac is an intensive process even when done by a professional and it can leave the nail thinner, and tender, as a result.

How to Care for the Natural Nail

The key to reducing damage, brittleness, soreness, flaking, and the occurrence of nail fungus is to promote a healthy nail bed growth through moisture! Here we have some tips to get some moisture back in your nails.

Let them rest – Give the nail time to recover by letting them breathe. Avoid nail polish altogether unless it is doctor formulated, full of nutrients and free from chemicals, such as Dr. Remedy’s.

Moisturize your nails – Cuticle oil is a wonderful aid in getting moisture to return to your nail bed and helps promote increased nail growth and protection. Applying cuticle oil gives the nail a fighting chance at recovery. Additionally, at BioPed you will find our Healthy Nail Tincture, which has been proved to restore health to the the nail bed through clinical studies in Europe.

Drink more water – This is a catch-all solution for dry skin and nails. Drinking water helps hydrate the body, which in turn can help increase the firmness and hydration of the nail bed.

Let the nail breathe – Dr. Remedy’s nail polish allows more breathability between the air and the natural nail, thus decreasing the occurrence of fungal nail infections and suffocation of the nail bed, leading to healthier, happier nails that still have the summer event look.

Ingrown toenails can be a painful nuisance!  When one or both sides of the nail dig into the skin, the nail may become ingrown.  An ingrown toenail can cause the skin around the nail to appear red, swollen and feel tender to the touch. If left untreated, the pain associated with an ingrown toenail can lead to a person changing the way they walk or move to “protect” their affected toe.  They can even lead to a pesky infection.

What causes ingrown toenails?  

• Ill-fitting and unsupportive footwear
• Genetics
• Exaggerated curved shape of the toenail
• Hammer toes and bunions
• Ill-treatment of toenails such as cutting nails too short
• Fungal infection of the nail
• Toenail injury

What do ingrown toenails feel and look like? 

• Pain when wearing closed-toe footwear
• Pain when walking, running or jumping
• Redness of the skin around the nail
• Presence of pus or blood
• Increased thickness at the sides and ends of the nail
• Callus build-up at the sides and ends of the nail

What can you do to ease your ingrown toenail pain? 

• Wash feet daily – use a mild soap with water
• Avoid ripping nails off – cut toenails straight across and not too short while making sure the sides are visible
• File nails smooth – make sure the ends and sides of the nails are not rough or jagged
• Apply vegetable oil – avocado or olive oil can help keep the skin at the side of the nail soft and in good condition
• Treat suspected infection – minor infections can be treated at home with an antiseptic such as rubbing alcohol, application of an antibiotic cream or ointment and covered with a bandage
• Ensure your shoes are a good fit – the toe box must be wide and deep enough to accommodate all toes comfortably

If you suspect infection or if your ingrown toenail continues to bother you, it is always best to seek the advice of a professional. BioPed Footcare has Footcare Nurses and Registered Chiropodists who can assess and treat your ingrown toenails safely and effectively.  Ingrown toenail treatment at BioPed is provided based on each individual’s need.  Give us a call today to see how we can help ease your ingrown toenail pain so you can put the Spring back into your step!

Also known as onychomycosis (on-ih-koh-my-KOH-sis), fungal toenails can be uncomfortable, thickened, misshaped, discoloured, crumbly and smelly.  Onychomycosis can be a source of embarrassment and insecurity and can even lead to skin breakdown due to excess pressure on the nail bed.  Fungal toenails can spread from one person to another or from one toenail to another.

Toenail fungus is evident in the toenail itself, but the infection actually resides underneath the nail, in what is called, the nail bed.  The nail matrix or cells from which the nail grows is the part of the toenail that becomes infected with fungus.  If toenails are injured or if a person’s immune system is not working as well as it should, there is a greater risk for a fungal infection developing.

Fungal toenails & important things to remember

Fungal toenails are infamously hard to eradicate.  The challenge with treatment is penetration of the medication.   A topical treatment applied to the nail plate must penetrate through the plate down to the nail bed where the fungus lives.  The thinner the nail plate, the better a topical treatment will work.  BioPed’s Footcare Nurses and Registered Chiropodists focus on significantly reducing the thickness of the nail plate during a footcare treatment.

It is recommended to know if your thick and discoloured toenails are in fact caused by a fungus.  Not all thick and discoloured toenails are fungal and not all fungal toenails are thick and discoloured!  BioPed Medical Footcare Clinicians can work with your Primary Care Provider to help determine the answer.

Fungal toenails can be treated with topical medications applied directly to the nail and/or oral medications, which are prescribed by a medical doctor or nurse practitioner.  These oral medications are quite powerful and can have undesirable side effects and interactions with other medications.

One of the most effective treatments will soon be offered at many BioPed Footcare clinics!

Photodynamic light therapy (PDT) is a highly effective treatment option for fungal toenail infections. It is very different than laser treatment. At BioPed, we use the ClearToe Therapy Light specifically, which is the only laser-free class 2 photodisinfection device approved by Health Canada for the clearance of fungal nail infection. ToeFx’s proprietary non-toxic Clear Toe Serum is placed on the toenails to bind fungus and concentrate the light therapy. The toenails will be exposed to the therapy light for 15 minutes each session. Sessions are biweekly for 4-5 months.

PDT clinical studies were undertaken at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. These clinical trials were conducted in consultation with footcare clinicians and under the guidance of an orthopedic surgeon. Studies revealed that the ClearToe Light Therapy resulted in complete or substantial clearance of toenail fungus in 76% of patients after 8-10 sessions. Also, we learned that in those individuals who are 65 and over, or have severe infection, more treatment sessions may be required. Ultimately, the studies concluded that ClearToe Light Therapy is an effective, safe, and relatively painless treatment option for fungal nail infection.

Give BioPed Footcare a call today to book a footcare consultation and inquire if PDT is an option for you!

Do you ever have a day where you have to say no to an activity because your feet just hurt? We understand that life gets busy and can keep you on the go much longer than anticipated. Between work or school, kid drop offs and walks with friends, life makes you move! At BioPed, we believe you deserve to do more of what you love without pain getting in your way. It may not even register as pain, but if you have sore feet, achy legs or a tired back, you may be in need of some comfort and support. BioPed clinicians are uniquely positioned to help you do more by providing you with a thorough biomechanical assessment, excellent products and ongoing care to keep you happily on your feet all day long.

Properly fitting shoes can make a world of difference. Shoes are with us every step of the day. They are the interface that our feet use to interact with the ground, and they need to be given more care and consideration if we want them to work for us, instead of against us.

Common complaints that keep us from doing more in our day:

Pain in the Toes – From slightly scrunched to blistered from friction, our toes are what push us from one step to the next, and these seemingly small discomforts can quickly stop us from doing more in our day. If you are kicking off your shoes before the end of the day and spreading out your toes, taping their blistered tips or seeing red pressure splotches all over them, your shoes are probably too tight. The properly fitted shoe has the depth, width and length that allows your toes to move without being pinched, squeezed or rubbed the wrong way.

Pain at the Heel – Whether the pain is under the heel, through the heel, or right on the back, there are many shoe features that can help to alleviate these daily discomforts. When the shoe is too big the heel can slip around and even out of the shoe causing blistering and soreness along the tendons that rest there. Having a cushioned collar and deep heel cup to hold the heel in place can minimize these effects. Supportive, cushioned heels that are resilient as well as comfortable can increase shock absorption and decrease throbbing, achy heels.

Pain at the Ball of the Feet – Corns, calluses, redness, swelling, soreness… any of these along the ball of the foot indicate that there is too much pressure happening in that bony area of the foot. This is the on-the-go movement, that push from the whole foot to the forefoot, and when it’s painful it drastically changes our yes to adventure, to a no from the couch. Properly fitting shoes that have a stiff forefoot rocker can help to propel you through your day with ease by offloading the front of the foot and lessening pain with each step.

How do orthotics fit in?

Quite literally, they fit into those new properly fitting shoes! When the shoe supports the foot, the shoe will also support the orthotic against your foot. With custom made orthotics designed to offload the sore, painful areas of your feet you can do more every day! Orthotics impact us from the bottom up. They offer firm support to the flexible foot, and cushioned shock absorption to the high arched foot, while considering points of pain and offloading those areas of discomfort. When your feet are feeling good, so are you, and you deserve to feel great when you’re out there living your life. Let your feet take you on every path your heart desires by fitting your feet into custom orthotics and properly fitted shoes with your lower limb team at the BioPed location nearest you.