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| Nails can become a source of pain if not managed. (I met this little dog in the US, and yep someone had painted her nails). |
If you’ve not suffered the
displeasure of an ingrown toenail before, those who’ve had one can tell you of
the seemingly disproportionate pain. Weight bearing, touching or even the
vibrations through the ground of someone standing near the affected toe can be
excruciating.
We see ingrown toenails in
senior pets, most commonly cats but I do see them in dogs and increasingly in
guinea pigs. The aetiology is somewhat different to human ingrown toenails but
the impact is the same – it causes discomfort, pain, inflammation and often
infection. A toenail is, after all, a foreign body which, once it starts
growing INTO tissue, the body wants to reject.
One reason I think we see
this most commonly in cats is because they are furry. Hairy toes mean it can be
hard to see the nail. The second of course is that many cats are “foot shy” –
they don’t like their feet being touched, and they’re variably direct about
telling you so.
Ingrown toenails are seen
most commonly in older cats, I suspect because arthritis means it can be hard
to bend and flex to reach and groom the toes – and it may be harder to use
enough strength when employing a scratching post or similar to remove the
offending nail.
The sum total of this is a
nail which keeps growing.
So I thought I’d show what
such a nail can look like and demonstrate how big they can be.
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| This cat had two other ingrown toenails. Note this one extends from the nail bed (top) curling right around and inserting into the tissue of the toe. |
What to do to avoid these?
Regular nail trims. Though I’ve done thousands of them, in most cases I need
someone (ie a vet nurse) to hold the patient while I trim the nails (especially
guinea pigs). Just about every vet clinic provides a nail-trimming service.
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| Better out than in. A huge ingrown toenail is removed. Note how sharp and pointy that thing is at the end. Not nice at all. |
It’s well worth getting
young pets used to you handling their feet, and trimming nails regularly. They
grow back pretty fast. For pets with arthritis, sometimes pain relief solves
the problem of overgrown nails if it allows them to weight bear to an extent
that the nails can be worn down naturally, or if it enables them to groom
properly.
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| Guinea pig in position for a nail clip. This nail clip was being performed by the owner of a guinea pig at a guinea pig show. |
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| This is another pic from the US (hedgehogs are exotic to Australia). This little hedge is having a nail clip. |
From a veterinary
perspective, these are one of those problems that feel really good to solve.
There’s the nail, then it’s gone – and the animal can walk properly again
(though multiple ingrown toenails in the same animal at the same time are more
common than not so it’s usually a repeat process til they are all gone). I never
get bored of removing them (I never get bored of hedgehogs either).
