Keeping your feet clean and dry is the best way to prevent toenail fungus from reappearing. Washing your feet with soap and water every day, taking care to clean between your toes, and drying them thoroughly afterwards is essential. Avoid having wet or sweaty feet for too long, as a humid, warm area is the perfect environment for fungi to thrive. Wearing flip flops in public areas such as showers and pools, and changing sweaty socks and shoes often can help prevent the fungus from coming back.
If the toenail fungus is mild and doesn't bother you, you may not need treatment. However, if it is painful and has caused the nails to thicken, self-care measures and medications can help. Even if treatment is successful, nail fungus often comes back. The more air that can circulate around the feet, the drier and less susceptible to toenail fungus they will be.
In moderate to severe cases, the fungus can even enter the nail matrix, meaning that any new growth on a nail is already infected. One of the best ways to treat toenail fungus is to detect them early, at which point topical antifungal treatments are still effective. Toenails are quite thick and are made up of many layers, which means that fungus can accumulate deep within these layers, making it difficult to detect. Once the fungus has been eradicated, you can grow new transparent nails to replace the war-torn battlefields that once existed.
Unfortunately, most cases of toenail fungus aren't discovered until it has had a good chance of entrenching itself in the toenail. To prevent this from happening again, it's important to keep your feet clean and dry at all times. Wearing flip flops in public areas such as showers and pools, changing sweaty socks and shoes often, and avoiding having wet or sweaty feet for too long can help keep your feet healthy and free from infection.
