Back for round two of Ask Dr. Moron, this week we have another easy one. That’s after fixing a wobbly tooth last time out.

Now we’re here to fix a toe (and the human attached to it). Let’s pull on those gloves, sterilise a scalpel, and save the day!

Dealing With an Ingrowing Toenail

Disclaimer: We ARE NOT trained medical professionals and Ask Dr. Moron is a sham. Do not take this nonsense seriously and seek proper assistance from your doctor.

Hello, I'm Asbjørn. I'm from Norway, but currently work in London as a freelance graphic designer. My foot is giving me bother, though, and when I took a closer look I realised I have what appears to be an ingrowing toenail on my big toe.

I'm a bit baffled about that, so thought I'd turn to you for advice. Takk (cheers!), Asbjørn

Hi, Asbjørn. Normally we recommend an immediate amputation for such a development, but from experience we know that tends to upset patients.

However, if it starts to swell and ooze funny looking colours, we suggest you immediately start hacking at it with a knife (or your bare hands).

Ingrowing toenails are usually fatal within 70 years, so you may want to take extreme measures to ensure you’re still with us come 2090.

Emergency Medical Procedures for Ingrowing Toenails

Pour phenol and halogenated phenols (TCP) over the toenail and wait 24 hours. That’s a mild antiseptic that may prove effective.

If the nail is still growing inward after the allotted time period, this means it’s a serious case. You can take the following steps, but brace yourself for the worst:

• Talk to the ingrowing toenail to try and persuade it to go in the right direction. Get a pedicure and treat it right.
• Use a pair of pliers to try and coax it back in the normal direction.
• Yank at the toenail out of your toe with the pliers, like in that bit from highly disturbing horror film The Fly.
• Threaten to amputate the big toe with a rusty chainsaw.
• Ignore the problem and hope it goes away, gradually allowing the toenail to grow into your body and work its way up to your brain.

With the latter stage, the toenail will then infect your grayish nerve cells and leave you overwhelmed with thoughts about nails.

We must now look at this capitalistic, societal, and economic issue in further depth. Time to extrapolate!

The Convergence of Nail Bars and Ingrowing Toenails

It’s due to this medical issue that people open nail bars—they’re in the final stages of ingrowing toenail infection and don’t have long to go (usually only four to five decades).

Typically, at this stage, we rely on experimental brain surgery to try and remove the offending toenail.

On one occasion, we removed the brain entirely and kept it in a jar. Then forced the brain to watch Coronation Street on a loop.

The toenail withered and died due to chronic boredom and despair, at which point we were able to place the brain back in the human body.

That was the plan, but we dropped the brain on the floor by accident. That was an embarrassing error and the local authorities are still on our case about it.

The court case is ongoing. Our excuse at the moment is there’s not enough room in society for mad doctors or scientists.

And that, in itself, is of hindrance to society due to a lack of demented experimentation.

Had we had proper governmental funding and the opportunity to become fully trained, we may not have dropped the brain on the floor.

If Manchester Crown Court doesn’t accept this excuse, we’re going to plead insanity (again) and hope for the best.

Anyway, whenever you see a nail bar closing down that means surgery was successful. And the person is returning to their life as normal.

Get in touch, Asbjørn, if you’re happy for us to crack open your skull and take a look inside. We have a no refund policy.