Hello Mamas,
My little one has an ingrown toenail that looks painful. I know from experience. It is the big toe and she probably got this from picking/peeling her toenails. I have told her a million times to please not pick her toenails but she does anyway. And sometimes I even catch her chewing her toenails. I know this is nasty but there isn't much more I can do to stop this. I do cut her toenails short but she still picks them. I don't know where she gets this from because I go and have my toenails done. My husband says he peels his toenails "NASTY", so maybe she has seen him. Not sure. What should I do for her?? The last ingrown toenail I had, I had to go to the doctor and get medicine that healed it. She won't even let me touch it. She will only let us look at it. Right now it is red and looks like it has a little pus (sp) too. Any advice will help.
Also she peels the skin off her lips... We have tried everything to get her to stop. We give her lots of chap stick and other lip moisturizers. It kind of seems like something that you would compare with someone biting their nails. So her lips are always horribly chapped and sometimes even have blood spots. Again what would you do?? She has beautiful lips and I don't want her to ruin them. Any advice is appreicated. Thanks!
I can't comment on the toenail but wanted to suggest that after she's asleep, go into her room and coat her lips with Aquaphor. I hate it as a hand lotion, but when my son gets that red/raw under-the-nose thing from a cold, when I do that--it's healed by morning so might be worth a try?
For ingrown toenails (my daughter picks hers too and sometimes bites them - I wish I was so flexible) I have soaked her feet in Epsom Salt water in one of those little jacuzi's for feet (Dr. Scholls makes one, where the water can get heated and aerated) to disinfect the feet. Then I use Anbesol which is a gel or liquid that is meant to numb gums when you have a tooth ache, and I slather that all over the ingrown area to numb it. After it is numb, you can use nailclippers to get under the nail towards the edge and pull out the "root" of the nail that continued to grow under the skin at the side of the nail. Usually, once I dig out the root&nail, you will see that the actual nail is very short but the "root" along the edge has grown longer and is poking painfully into the skin. You can then simply snip that little point off to make the root and nail equal so that the nail can continue to grow. Often there is puss if there is an infection, so we continue to give her the Epsom Salt soaks for a few nights.
For lips, we make sure she uses the white Blistex cream at night, and in the morning I make sure she slathers on some lipbalm. We have bought her every variety and none really work, except the overnight treatment with Blistex.
The Anbesol is also very useful for when I need to pull out loose teeth but she is fearful that it will hurt. We slather on the Anbesol around the loose tooth and then I can simply take the loose tooth out of her mouth without any pain.
Good luck, seems you have a little "picker" on your hands. What we do for my daughter is paint her finger- and toe-nails, to give her something harmless to pick.
I agree with upping water consumption to help with the lips... I do this, and I notice that my lips "flake" more when I'm not drinking enough water... the 'flakes' annoy me, and I chew and peel them, which causes worse flakes, eventually getting to the point of bleeding. It's a vicious cycle. lol.
For the toenail, I would get her a wider shoe. Ingrown toenails can sometimes happen when her toes are too cramped... that's what happened to me. It was severe enough in my case that it started growing out the side of my toe!!! (I was in boot camp at the time, and didn't want to risk getting 'washed back' a week...so it got pretty severe and infected.) The doctor had to cut 1/2 my toenail off! I would honestly take her to the doctor, and have him numb it to cut it out. You don't want her to get scared of you cutting her toenails! When my brother had an ingrown toenail as a kid, my dad just cut it out himself. After that it was a battle to cut his toenails every time... then we would see how freaked out he was and it freaked US out, so they had to fight with all of us every time our nails needed cut.
First, if she has dry flakes on her lips that she peels, she may be a little dehydrated. Up her water intake. I use Blistex exclusively because it gets under those dry patches and sluffs them off so there is nothing to pull. Nothing else I have ever used works the same. And, I HATE the waxy glumpy feeling of most other lipbalms. The only two I can tolerate are both Blistex products. The white tube for treatment of already chapped lips annd the blue Tub of Lip medExfor prevention. They both soak in, instead of sitting on top of your skin...
For her toenail, give her a home pedicure. Make a big deal of setting up one of those foot baths. Picking out color. Rent her a new movie and put on headphones...
Add a cup of Epson salt. Soak it for 10-15 min and then start with the other foot. Clean the nails and push the cuticles. Work your way to the sore one. Maybe you can get it done before she realizes its done. If not, I would treat with peroxide and neosporin and bandaide.
Those are compulsive habits, and not easily stopped.
I picked and bit my toenails, but not my lips. IMO there is a little anxiety involved in compulsive habits, so try and make your daughter's home life as calm as possible, and don't make too big a deal over the habits.
What she's doing won't ruin her lips, but try buying her some cute chapstick. Maybe that'll help.
Try putting a bandaid with lots of Neosporin on the infected toenail, and if the nail isn't too ingrown that will take care of it. If the nail is seriously ingrown, you have to have the doctor fix it. When I was a teen I was always causing toenail infections by my picking, and the bandaid/Neosporin trick always worked for me.
My little guy had serious ingrown toenails and the pediatrist recommended surgery. We didn't want to do that on a 3-yr. old. Well, my husband's sister is a manicurist and she started giving him mini-'pedicures' about every three months. He's now 9 and hasn't had an in-grown toenail since.
I was a picker when I was a child - lips, fingernails, fingertips, scabs. The best product I've found to hydrate lips and dry skin is Aquafor. Chapstick and any other wax balm in a tube lasts about a minute.
When I was a child I always got ingrown toenails because I had wide feet and my shoes always squeezed my feet so my doctor told my mom to clip a. V shape into the middle of the toenail and that would cause the tonail to frow to the middle to close the gap
OH how painful I had this happen to mine because I picked at the corners( the reason I picked at the corners was they were diggin into the sides when I wore shoes & it began a habit not doing that anymore) then caused them to tear down to the skin had to have toe surgery 3x's not fun.
My son was around her age he was wearing flip flops tripped & his toe nail ripped then the side on the nail snagged so he ripped it off it was ok for a few days then infection settled in Neosporin & soaking it in Epsom salt didn't help so I took him in they prescribed antibiotics healed the toe then eventually the nail grew back just fine (there was not more flips flops that summer)I knew it was infected it was red warm to the touch swollen it was shiny where it was red & swollen & pus was tring to ooze out & sore.
If she has any of these signs soaking it in Epsom & treating with Neosporin will not heal it even after a few days if it is bad enough you'll know she will need to be seen & ginen an antibiotic the bacterial infectin already settled in.
Chapped lips I us Chapstick,Soft Lips,Blistix,Carmex you'll have to maybe try a few I remeber using Mentholatum on my lips for over night that was a long time ago.
