A Bothersome Bruise Under a Toenail
Unlike a cut or burn, bruises can be painful and hard to treat. With a cut, you simply cover with a bandage and with a burn, you treat with a cooling ointment or cream, but bruises are mostly left to heal or subside on their own. Sometimes bruises may be treated with a cold compress or a numbing cream.
In the case that you have suffered trauma to any of your finger or toenails, bruising may be imminent under the nail. Once you have a bruised toenail, there may be the hazard of losing your nail or incurring more pain when wearing shoes. Some simple tricks can help protect your bruised nail.
Protection for Your Bruised Toenail
For some, it may be that simple pressure of regular-type shoes can cause pain, and switching to an open toed shoe or a shoe of a larger size can help prevent the pressure that can be causing continuous pain of a bruised toe nail.
Covering the toenail with a gauze pad, cotton ball or a small portion of cloth to add padding between your toe and shoe can also be very helpful. You can wrap your toe and secure the piece with a band of medical bandage tape. Wearing a sock over the bandage can add more protection when wearing open or closed toe shoes.
After the pain has subsided, you may still want to wrap your bruised toenail, in case it would become loose and start to fall off. If the toenail becomes loose, it can catch or snag on threading in shoes, or even pant wear, carpet and bedding. If you need only to keep the toenail intact until the entire nail is loose, a simple piece of medical bandage tape or band-aid can secure the nail for the length of time necessary.
Proper Bruised Nail Protection
When wrapping a toe or finger for several days, you will want to insure that you keep the bandages loose enough so as not to reduce circulation or cause moisture to build in the bandage.
If you notice a numbing or burning sensation in your toe after wrapping it then you have the bandage too tight. You want to keep the bandage as snug as possible because your feet see a lot of activity and the bandage can fall off easily inside your shoe or sock, but not too tight that you lose circulation or cause more pain to your bruised toenail.
