ingrown toenail?

[chrisk833]

I think I have an ingrown toenail but I'm not sure.  Starting saturday morning (2 days ago) I work up with the outside top edge of my big toe hurting.  It hurt even more when I put pressure at it but sometimes when I walked.  It continued to hurt so this morning I took some action and got out my pointed nail file to see what was going on.  What a surprise when I started to try to lift the edge of the toenail up and a bunch of yellowish puss came out... gross!  My question is will this clear up on its own?  I've managed to clear most of the puss out and I can see the edge of my nail clearly so I dont think its ingrown anymore (but I'm not sure).  I was going to put neosporin on it and hope it clears up.  Is there anything else I should do or any other idea what the problem is?

[Dakota102010]

soaking your foot in warm salt water will also help. Surgical intervention may be required if you let it go to long without attention to it, i had both of mine removed twice, and had to have the nail bed altered to prevent further problems, but soaking it in salt water will help, and you may require the antibiotics like the above comment to clear up any infection.

[Dr Vinod]

Hello!

You should try to cut and trim and file your toe nail as close as possible.

Clean your wound with povidone iodine solution and apply neosporin ointment till your infection subsides.

If you still have discharging pus after couple of days then get your toe examined and consider oral antibiotics.

Take care!