What to look out for when it comes to toenail fungus? Here are symptoms that you might want to know:
There is a feeling of discomfort once you have nail fungus or onychomycosis. You may not notice it at first not until it gets severe since the signs are not that dramatic. Understanding and determining toenail fungus symptoms, will greatly help in achieving healthy nails in a short period of time.
Older people, 50 and above, are the ones who normally gets infected with onychomycosis. Most of them are males but there is a significant chance for women to have it too. The age and the gender matter due to the reasons below:
· Fungus is a microorganism that lives in dark, warm, and moist areas. You may also like to note that they mostly feed to sugar.
· Men usually wear closed shoes and working boots. Men easily sweat due to the extent of their labor. Most of them use the same footwear every day. These conditions make their footwear a good breeding ground of fungus.
· Older people have weaker immune system compared to anyone else. Toenail fungus attacks the nails of those whose immune system cannot protect the well-being of the body that much. If you are diabetic, though still young, there is still a high chance of getting infected with onychomycosis.
· If you are young, this does not make your any safer that your older counterparts. Fungi have spores that can easily penetrate your toes if there is an opening in your skin due to scratches or small lesions.
If you feel that you are not included in the profile of persons who get infected by nail fungus easily, then you are lucky. There are about 2-18% in the worldwide population who is suffering from this fungal infection. Knowing the first signs of this infection and responding to them quickly will help you in identifying the suitable toenail fungus treatment.
· Discoloration of the nails. The color depends on the cause of the infection and the type of fungus that infected you.
· When the skin around a specific nails becomes itchy and irritated. This means that the fungus did not just attack the nails but also the nail bed.
· Toenails are deforming. You might see that your nails are chipped or flaky.
· When you are developing thick toenails. This means that your nail fungus is becoming more and more serious.
· When your nails are slowly separating from the nail bed. This is the worst thing that can happen to your nails since the nail plate should be removed through surgery.
