Toenail fungus is an embarrassing infection. It causes the nails to discolor and the nails to become odorous. In chronic situations, you can lose the infected nail. At that rate, you’d have to wait for the nail to grow back, which takes about 6 months minimum, if the nail bed is in good condition. But even with the positive fact that it can grow back, you’re still stumped with the possibilities of getting another infection, which, at this point, would be highly risky because of the open tissue.
This is a free and easy way for bacteria and other microbes to travel and infect the area all over again – a much dangerous circumstance.
Fortunately, there are a few toenail fungus treatments in the market. There are two main methods as toe fungus treatment: medicinal and homeopathy and a third approach of treatment, the naturopathic.
One way in how to get rid of toenail fungus is to treat it medicinally. You have the option of oral medication or topical medication. This is the conventional way to treat your infection.
Oral Fungus Treatment
Oral fungus treatment is the choice if you have moderate to severe nail fungus. An example of the pill form is Lamisil®. The only con in taking it orally is the adverse effects and monitoring for signs of serious side effects for those who can become allergic to the drug.
Topical Fungus Treatment
Another method is applying the medicine topically. This method is typically for mild conditions of toenail fungus. Lamisil® is also available as topical treatment and is applied on the infected area and the skin around it. However, it is not quite advantageous as oral medication because it focuses only on the exterior region.
Homeopathy
Although the medicinal method may be effective, some people fear having to go to the doctor for many reasons and they use over the counter (OTC) nail fungus treatments. The high cost of drugs is enough reason to steer away from. The other method secondary to medicine is homeopathy. It is a therapy started by a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann some 200 years ago. The idea of homeopathy is similar to the same motto as conventional medicines and is deemed quite popular in contemporary times. The objective is to treat with the use of natural substances without the involvement of pharmaceutical agents. An example of homeopathic treatment for toenail fungus is the application of tea tree oil on the nail itself. This treatment has been effective for many after having tried it in the first trial. Zetaclear™ is one of the more popular homeopathic treatments because it is a combination of two routes in one: internal and external, which produces greater curative results. Also Nail-Rx™, Funginix™ (some use to call it Fungisil), Purnail™ and Claripro™ are popular and reputable homeopathic medication solutions for toe nail fungus treatment, using great formulas blend of herbal natural oils and minerals against the fungi.
Naturopathic Toenail Fungus Treatment
While there are products on the market that promise results in days or weeks, you need to keep in mind that your toenails and finger nails are dead. Although you want to deal with toenail fungus using a naturopathic approach, no product including what is offered by the medical community can restore your dead, fungus infected toenails. This means that it will be weeks and probably months for the old and ugly fungus toenail to grow out to be cut away.
To get rid of the ugly toenail then, you must grow out new, healthy nail. To do this, it’s important to keep the fungus from infecting new toe nail as it’s growing. This is done using naturopathy products like vinegar to change the nail environment to be less attractive to fungus. The next thing to do is to then treat the toenail with natural, essential oils that will penetrate to the nail bed and provide natural antibiotic properties.
Prescription drugs for toenail fungus cost hundreds of dollars and usually require ongoing blood tests to monitor for liver damage.
And there’s no guarantee that they will completely cure your nail fungus.
The term naturopathy is a therapy and treatment method that uses natural remedies or folk medicine. While many in the medical community scoff at these methods, they will also admit that many of the modern medicines were created from information obtained through natural medicine and plants.
The disagreement is based on the problem of effectiveness. While modern medicine relies on research testing, naturopathic medicinal remedies are based on decades and sometimes centuries of fold medicine understanding.
So the way of the naturopathy to treat toenail fungus would include changing your diet to change the chemical balance of your system thereby making your body less habitable for fungus growth.
A topical solution like soaking in a 50-50 mixture of natural apple cider vinegar and water for 10-30 minutes 3 times a day would also fit into the naturopathic treatment process.
It’s at this point where many naturopathy type remedies can become a burden. If you understand that toenail fungus flourishes as new toenail is grown, you know that any treatment plan will need months until the fungus infected nail is completely gone. This means that a naturopathic method of cleaning up your toenail fungus means 1-1.5 hours a day, everyday, for 2-3 months or more. Home toenail fungus cures that rely on hours of treatment time for months is very difficult to manage for most of us.
The ideal is both alternative medicine and traditional medicine can work together as combination of balancing and complementing one another for total treatment of toenail fungus.
