Ingrown Toenail in Children and Teenagers: Swelling, Infection, Pus, and Pain in the Big Toe

Are your child or teenager's ingrown toenails causing swelling, inflammation, pus, and pain in the big toe?

A patient who visited us with an ingrown toenail — an elementary or middle school student

The big toe showed clear signs of inflammation, pus, pain, and swelling from the ingrown toenail. When we asked whether the patient had been taking medication for it, we learned that a previous clinic had not performed removal surgery and had only prescribed oral medication for the ingrown toenail.

Each time the ingrown toenail inflammation flared up, the medication provided some temporary relief — but only while being taken. Because the ingrown toenail kept recurring and the pain kept returning, the patient wanted to have it properly removed at a specialist clinic, and so we proceeded with ingrown toenail removal surgery.

Ingrown toenails (onychocryptosis) in adolescents differ from those in adults: rather than pain at the very tip of the big toenail, the pain tends to spread broadly along the entire edge of the toenail.

Even lifting the toenail slightly revealed discharge and significant inflammation underneath. It was easy to imagine how much pain this middle school student had been enduring and how long they had been putting up with it.

By completely removing the root cause of the ingrown toenail in children and adolescents, our clinic works to achieve ingrown toenail removal without recurrence.

The exact cause of the ingrown toenail must be identified and completely removed to prevent recurrence.

After the ingrown toenail removal surgery, any granulation tissue associated with pus and inflammation is also carefully debrided and removed.

Complete removal of all remaining inflamed tissue is necessary to finish both the ingrown toenail correction and the treatment of the associated inflammation.

In addition, for patients who undergo ingrown toenail removal surgery at our clinic, our foot specialist and head physician Dr. Jo Ju-won takes great care to ensure the ingrown toenail does not recur, completing meticulous electrocautery as part of the procedure.

As a clinic specializing in ingrown toenail removal surgery, we perform the procedure under local anesthesia of the affected toe — from the local anesthesia of the big toe through the nail removal to the final suturing —

all carried out directly by our head physician. As a result, patients who come to us for ingrown toenail removal surgery have no anxiety or hesitation about the procedure.

Here is how the student's toe looked after ingrown toenail removal surgery, having suffered for so long from the ingrown toenail. The suturing was completed cleanly after surgery. The reason for suturing after ingrown toenail removal is to achieve hemostasis at the removal site and to prevent recurrence, given the weight-bearing and walking that occurs postoperatively.

This is the removed ingrown toenail after surgery.

Please keep in mind that the ingrown toenail must be removed including the root to prevent recurrence. We have seen patients who had ingrown toenail removal surgery at other clinics and experienced more than ten recurrences because the removal was not complete.

For ingrown toenail removal surgery, Gangnam Standard Orthopedics is a specialist orthopedic clinic dedicated to ingrown toenail care.

Directions to Gangnam Standard Orthopedics (Gangnam Station)

Approximately 4 minutes on foot from Gangnam Station Exit 5.

From Gangnam Station Exit 5, walk 275 m toward the Useong Apartment intersection, then cross the crosswalk toward Paris Baguette Gangnam-yeok Seocho Branch, and immediately turn right — pass Son Sangwon Climbing Gym, and we are located on the 2nd floor above Nuaju Gangnam-yeok Café and Cheongdam Maenyeo Gimbap Gangnam-yeok Branch.

※ Gangnam Standard Orthopedics is an officially registered clinic able to treat foreign patients.