"Black" Toe - How the hell do you prevent this?

Yeah, I was dealing with volume issues in the mid foot and ankle areas of my old boots so I went down a shell size and got top of the line custom footbeds. A new DFP 'HD' intuition liner is next. The toe box seems to have enough room now after lots of work but the liner is really tight so that's compounding the problem.

Doc agrees my right toe nail is infected so I'm on Keflex now, hopefully will be back on skis soon.

Strangely, that bunion doesn't require punching of the shell and doesn't hurt, ever. I do generally punch the outsides of both in the 'sixth' and 'seventh' toe areas.

Crossing my fingers that these boots will work, lots of time and money invested so far.

get it removed. I'm going on ~1 month now since my left nail was yanked out and killed off, and it is infinitely better than having an ingrown toenail ever again. I was in a lot of pain the first week, mostly because the quality dr's here in Butte don't believe in antibiotics and it got infected. If that hadn't happened, I bet I would have been able to ski within a week.

Still looks gnarly when I get out of the shower / pool. The raw part swells right up with fluid, that I can squish out and is this weird orange - clear colour, with a few chunks in it. I might get it checked out if it doesn't stop that in the next week or two

Sounds awesome!

Really though, I am seriously considering this for both feet but I'd like to wait until ski season is over to do it.

probably a good idea. If my right one ends up ingrown I'll probably just get side cut out if it is during ski season so I don't have the recovery time to deal with.

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Originally Posted by L7

You mean you forgot to piss? Do you piss on your toe usually? That's kinda gross isn't it? I'll take the red hot paper clip, it's worked for me before. The drill bits, the pins they all pale to the sweet relief of that searing paper clip hitting pay dirt. If it's really throbbing sure there's a bit of spray but what else feels good when it throbs just before it releases? Peeing on my toe just ain't on. You went to the Ashley MacIssac school of toe releif, didn't you?

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I thought I might be the only one here who knew who the fuck Ashley MacIssac was, we should start a thread under books and music, unless he drills toenails at a ski shop on Cape Breton Island...

Both toenails off, getting ablation in the AM.

Stoked?

I read this thread... mostly. I felt so inclined to actually register just to give you guys some personal insight.

I'm an out of shape 300+lb male with a shoe size of 12. I went on a canoe trip recently, and wore my boots that I've had for a long time. They have a very snug fit, and my toenails were not trimmed before going. Although my entire trip pretty much consisted of me sitting in a canoe, not even moving my feet, the next day I had a constant pain in my left big toe.

The following day, I noticed my black toenail (just a small part on the left side, not the entire nail). I have never had the pleasure, so I had absolutely no idea it could have been a blister under the nail. My wife actually went through nail tech school. She was sure it was a fungus, because of her schooling. I didn't think so, because I thought it was a bruise because of the way it felt and the fact that it was exactly where my toes were crossed in my tight shoe.

After putting anti-fungal treatments on the toe for it to do nothing, finally I decided to consult google -- something I've been banned from doing lol. It lead me here, and I just wanted to say that there is absolutely no way that anything outside of sheer pressure caused my issue. I didn't even walk on my foot. I don't use my boots very often, and the salesman sold me the same crap that a tight fit is what I wanted in a boot when I got it. I should have just gone elsewhere, and know better now. I promptly purchased new boots, which feel soo much better on my feet.

I doubt getting tighter boots would ever do anything but make this issue worse -- my case is a perfect example, since there was no movement involved proving that couldn't have been a factor.

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Originally Posted by beaterdit

Both toenails off, getting ablation in the AM.

Stoked?

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So...Isn't it awesome after it's all done and healed?

Soo about a month back I sliced open that little bit of skin that holds the end of the living nail to my toe. Bled like a mofo for a while, and for a couple weeks I was hopeful I could keep it. But the center part of the toe nail bed has been peeling back for a while, think its all the way to the end now. I've been chopping the nail back as I could. I'm exposing nasty crusty/scaly skin as I go under the center of the nail. Last night I trimmed too much I guess, started under the shitty dead center and went to the sides, but apparently the sides that I trimmed are still alive and gentle tugging led to pain and (healthy) fluid. I slapped a band aid on it so they wouldn't catch and went to bed.

So, what should I do? Trim off the bits I've got now (left the nail slivers so I could get grip for option 2). Option 2, vice grip that shit and pull. Option 3, leave it under the band aid and try a gentle pull day after day till it comes.

I had kind of assumed as I saw the gaping hole under the center of the nail that I was going to lose the whole thing eventually. Is that maybe not the case? Worried about it growing back with all that scorched earth shit underneath.

I vote for option 2.

Be sure to make a sound/video recording of the screaming and post it to youtoobs and put linky here.

OR

Have some paitence and wait, it will do its own thing in time and eventually the toenail fairy will bring you a new one.

BTW the toenail fairy likes Makers Mark, leave in unmarked paper bag outside door.

Woah, seems you actually understood that wall of text. Here's a picture anyways. The red/brown scorched earth shit goes all the way back to the back end I'm pretty sure.

http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/...ps501b3a3d.jpg

Poked and pried in the shower, apparently wet doesn't make any difference.

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Originally Posted by angrysasquatch

Woah, seems you actually understood that wall of text. Here's a picture anyways. The red/brown scorched earth shit goes all the way back to the back end I'm pretty sure.

http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/...ps501b3a3d.jpg

Poked and pried in the shower, apparently wet doesn't make any difference.

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I'm assuming you did self surgery to save cash, so it might not be an option... But I just had a podiatrist rip mine off, and problem solved - about $100. It was worth it because it was getting infected and hurting enough to not wear shoes (and it was already drained)...

If not possible I'd just wait, and bandaid over.

From experience it'll hurt like a mother if you catch that nail on socks, blankets, carpet, etc...

Get out of the back seat.

Trim the loose bits back to where they are attached and retrim anything that becomes loose. I wouldn't try to force the issue--no reason to damage healthy nail matrix. Use antibiotic ointment like neosporin on the raw crusted nail base, cover with a bandaid, reapply and change daily until intact skin. See how the nail grows back. If it grows back funny you can have it removed at a later time but no reason to force the issue now. Self surgery without local anesthetic will be very painful. If you do it make sure to post on youtube. Log on to healthcare.gov and get insurance.

Thanks for the replies. I'm a filthy socialist Canadian, but I just kind of like taking care of little shit myself. Oh, and not skiing, breakable crust+ hot tub snow dash + drunk. Caught the bugger on the crust when I broke thru, shitty luck.

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Originally Posted by angrysasquatch

Thanks for the replies. I'm a filthy socialist Canadian,

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In that case I have to charge you for my professional advice. PM sent.

Put on your lumberjack outfit, drink a bunch of whiskey, yank.
Be sure to wear your gopro for this.

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Originally Posted by vtdownhiller

The reason you get black toe is getting in the back seat from either making a lousy turn, I used to get it from just training gates and having one turn that you have to get on your tails and peel one off, or landing your airs back. The toe nail gets bruised from hitting the roof of the boot from the examples given above...and for those of you who get it you could probably say the air or the turn when you know you got way back and your started to hurt...the solution we came up with was padding the top of the liner across the toes but not across the big toe, this will give you a cushion of room between the daddy toe and the roof of the boot...you can even go as far as to sculpt a cavern in the shell above just the big toe...Lange used to send these squares of memory foam with each boot that work awesome...any oldtime lange dealer will have these kicking around, and if they are a lange dealer they will be familiar with black toe....just my 2cents.

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Bumping this thread. As a root cause, backseat airs, & tail gunning make's sense to me. Had an amazing early season pow day, last week. Full charge mode, air off everything, type of day. Probably tail gunning quite a bit in spots to deal with weird consolidated man made pow to. But my right toe is now a blackened mess. Always the right toe, it the slight larger of my two feet.

Boots feel really good. In Rx130 with GFT liners, no pain points, heels locked. Nothing extreme, running 1 size lower shell than street shoe size.

Just wondering if anyone else has tried the padding hack over the toe box trick described above. Or is there something else I should be thinking about.

I got the black right big toe beginning of last season cuz i stuffed a too-thick heated sock in the boot,

in any case the root cause was not enough room for the toe in a boot I have successfully used for 15 yrs,

so I yesturday on 1st day using the socks this season I swapped out the full length SOLE foot bed for something thinner a 3/4 custom job and no problem this morning

My probelm last year was obvuously TOO much padding

so I would think your toe is hitting something

If it's only one foot, and on the longer foot, I'd also check the liners. My right foot is over a full size longer than my left, and the papa toe went black and was lost for almost 10 years straight. It turned out that although the shell fit was good, the liners were short lasted. I ended cutting the liner to give more room for the toe, and problem solved.

Thanks guys. I'm going to start by trying a super thin sock, and then maybe a trim on the right foot bed, before I cut open my zipfits :)

Yes. Cut the liner. Several vertical slits have helped my side width . Not all the way through.
Never done it on the toe
Zip fits. Huh. Maybe shave a chunk off the front of the toe?
I’d rather trash I liner for science than lose a toenail.