Talk to some doctors and health professionals and you’ll realize that nail fungus infections are not treated very seriously at all. This is because they are generally asymptomatic in the early stages of the disease and painless. But in this article we provide some important reasons why you should be concerned about nail fungus infections and seek treatment as quickly as possible.
First of all, given the high prevalence rate of the disease it’s not unusual to develop a nail fungus infection. If you do, you’ll join the 35 million people in the US estimated to experience an infection during their lifetimes.
Second it rarely goes away on its own. While there may be long periods of dormancy, the fungus rarely retreats and needs treatment in order for it to be destroyed.
It’s true that in the early stages there is no pain. Unfortunately that’s not true for more advanced infections. In fact it’s not uncommon for the fungus to cause the nail to detach completely from the nail bed. If that occurs you’ll experience considerable discomfort when wearing tight fitting shoes, walking (or using your hands if your fingernails are affected).
You should also not discount the psychological impacts of the disease. It can be very upsetting for people to watch their toenails turning yellow, become thickened and brittle. They are likely to be far too embarrassed to walk around barefoot and will find themselves turning down trips to the beach or anywhere where open-toed footwear is the norm.
There is also a public health component. As the disease is highly contiguous anyone who is infected can easily spread the disease to others. Incidence rates are already growing rapidly as more of us frequent public spaces with damp environments where fungi thrive such as gym showers and swimming pool changing rooms, tanning beds and so on. It’s also possible to pick up the disease at a nail salon if proper sterilization procedures are not followed. Any concerned citizen will not want to risk spreading the disease to others.
Treatment, while time consuming and lengthy can be safe. Some sufferers are scared off treatment by stores of severe side effects from taking oral antifungal drugs. But there are many alternative treatments available. Check out this Funginix review from FungusFacts for information on a safe topical treatment that uses a FDA approved antifungal drug as it’s active ingredient.
Another key reason for early treatment is that the condition becomes far harder to treat the more of the nail that is affected. A particular point to note is that nail fungus infections are considered serious (and more complicated to treat) if the opaque half-moon section of nail near the cuticle has signs of fungal invasion. Make sure you treat the nail well before this point.