A fungal affair

I have written about my great tribulations of getting treatment for my fungal toes in this blog before.

Ahhh… my toe!

Keeping that toe dry

I have not been alone in this journey ……but the saga continues.

The recovering toenails

My husband has had toes as bad as mine for a while but all 10 of his were infected when he first when to see Dr Murravej three months ago. He decided to go for laser treatment. I interviewed him then to find out more about his procedure.
‘In my line of work I always need my toes to look their best – I have 10 badly fungal-ridden nails. One of them is black, the others are thick and crumbly. I was told that if I was brave, I would go for laser treatment and it would take between 10 min and half an hour depending on how brave I was,’ he said.
So how was it?
It took 5 minutes – (clearly he was not brave enough!) but he claims that Dr Murravej said he was top of the bravery scale
‘The procedure involved being blind-folded with goggles that had a cloth underneath. Dr Murravej and his assistant put on bright yellow tinted glasses, both of them to avoid laser-eye contact. They wheeled out a contraption – this was what would be used to treat me. I can’t remember much about the machine, but it had small wheels (did they squeak just a little bit?) it was metal and cuboid (do I remember flashing lights? and a kind of long vacuum cleaner like thing like a nose or is my memory failing me?). I only really saw it out of the corner of one eye as I stared at the fluorescent ceiling lamp while gritting my ..…relaxing, just before the goggles went on. I was told that if I twitched my foot at the wrong time, I would loss more than my nail so I stayed as relaxed and calm as possible and I dug my nail into my thumb in anticipation of pain. My left big toe was first in place and I could hear the tick tick of the laser as it pulsed, I could smell burning – I assumed (I think correctly) that it was my nail. There was a hot glowing feeling in my nail. It was not painful but unusual. I was unable to see anything – but could hear the tick tick tick of the laser – I could feel the block of ice they kept putting on my toes. I wish I had been able to see more of the procedure – a chance of a photograph while having the treatment would have been nice to have. The doctor went from nail to nail. The big toe required 24 pulses and the small perhaps 10 – and it all went very fast after that!’ he said.
The husband by then was appearing rather pleased with himself.
‘I can’t see any marks on the nails. I expected that when I took of my goggles, the nails would be black and charred but they looked like they always did. I still had 10 toes,’ he said.
Like me, there was some post-treatment work to do.
‘From now on I am going to take care of my toe nails. The anti-fungal cream and make doubly sure that I take my antifungal tablets for 3 months,’ he said.
What about the pain?
‘I have a high pain threshold which is uncharacteristic to men – apparently,’ the husband said, rather smugly.
Do you know that feeling you get when you know you have been had? Like when your parents would buy you an icecream cone and your big brother tells you that you should throw the cone away then later you realise that it was the best part, that the guy actually ate it when you were not looking? You know that feeling, right?
Well, here I am having had 2 toe nails ripped off – endured the painkillers and keeping the toe dry maneno and this guy walks out of the clinic all smiles and laughter – with 10 toes sorted and none of that headache to deal with. And what was worse, it was not any more expensive than what I had paid to receive my pain.
Damn, it was painless…. I mean surely? What kind of an idiot was I?
Anyways, so now we are a family with less fungus – picture the last shot in one of those old romance tales – handsome, brave (hmm!) prince, riding off to the horizon with a setting sun, wife by his side- both showing off their dazzling fungus free toes. Extremely romantic