Why do fungus appear on nails? What are the signs of the disease? This disease destroys the nail plate and causes a lot of problems. Our medical experts answered frequently asked questions and told us how to heal quickly with effective medications.
According to statistics, 20% of the Earth's total population is susceptible to nail infections caused by parasitic fungi. This condition is called onychomycosis and is caused by fungus on the nails.
What is onychomycosis?
The disease is infectious in nature, infection occurs from person to person, as well as through contact and household contact through commonly used objects. A fungal infection attacks the nail plate and eats away at it, destroying the nail.
Toenail fungus most often occurs on the toenails, because the feet are more sensitive to negative influences. However, the beginning of the development of pathology is preceded by a weakening of the immune system, leading to a decrease in the body's defenses, which does not allow the immune system to be sufficiently effective in the fight against pathogens.
Certain types of fungal infections cause onychomycosis of the hands and feet:
- dermatophytes;
- yeast;
- moldy;
- trichophytosis;
- microsporia;
- athlete's foot.
All fungal pathogens fall into two broad categories:
- Pathogenic.
- Conditionally pathogenic.
Pathogenic microorganisms are microorganisms that enter from the outside and harm human life. Conditionally pathogenic agents are those that normally live on the skin, mucous membranes and keratin areas of the human body, for example fungi of the genus Candida.
Normally, the organism coexists in symbiosis with opportunistic pathogenic microorganisms. But with a decrease in immunity and favorable conditions, these organisms begin to grow uncontrollably, which leads to the emergence of a pathological process.
Why do fungus appear on nails?
Common causes of yeast infection may include:
- weakened immune system;
- concomitant chronic diseases (eg, eczema, diabetes);
- non-compliance with personal hygiene rules;
- visit places where fungal infections concentrate (baths, sauna, swimming pool, public showers, water park);
- wear closed shoes, in which the feet are subject to profuse sweating;
- old age (after 65 years, natural immunity decreases);
- working environment conditions (working in a humid environment, at high ambient temperatures, in the presence of radiation, dusty and dirty environments).
Under such conditions, nail fungus develops on the hands and feet. It was noted that the disease is equally distributed by gender: men suffer from it almost 3 times more often than women.
How does the pathogen enter the nail plate?
The keratin plaque itself is not vulnerable to the penetration of mycotic pathogens. For an infection to begin to grow, its integrity must be compromised. There are three main routes of entry for fungal organisms:
- Through the nail plate due to injury and damage to the keratin layer;
- Through the subungual notch;
- Through the proximal nail fold.
Conditionally pathogenic organisms often cause inflammation of the cuticle.
What types of onychomycosis are there?
The disease comes in three types or stages, each of which differs in severity:
- Normotrophic type. Thin yellowish-gray stripes appear on the nail plate, brittleness and brittleness appear, but no thickening or subungual hyperkeratosis occurs.
- Hypertrophic type. It appears when there was no treatment or it was poorly selected and ineffective. First of all, the phenomenon of subungual hyperkeratosis occurs, leading to thickening, which persists long after successful treatment.
- Atrophic type. The most difficult stage of the disease. The nail becomes thinner, becomes brittle and brittle, changes color to dark grayish-brown, over time its growth is disrupted and complete separation of the nail bed occurs.
Knowing the type of disease will allow you to decide how to treat nail fungus.
What are the symptoms of onychomycosis?
Signs indicating a fungal infection:
- the appearance of light yellow or grayish stripes and spots on the nail plate, which makes its appearance painful;
- change in color of the plaque to yellow, brown and brown, which darkens over time to black;
- the cuticle and proximal ridge become inflamed;
- the plaque thickens and becomes fragile, brittle, crumbly;
- a characteristic specific odor appears;
- Over time, the nail plate completely peels off.
How to diagnose the disease?
Changes in color, roughness, and scaling can help suspect onychomycosis. However, similar symptoms are also characteristic of many other diseases (for example, eczema, psoriasis, lichen planus). Therefore, a single examination by a doctor is not enough.
With this problem, you should contact a dermatologist, podiatrist or mycologist. If it is difficult to differentiate the cause of the disease, you should contact a general practitioner or family doctor, who will refer you to a specialist. To adjust the treatment, you may need to consult a surgeon.
When making a diagnosis, it is necessary to check the mycotic origin of the infection. To do this, a microscopic examination of the keratin thickening is carried out. However, to determine the type of pathogen, it is necessary to perform a bacterial culture for analysis.
How to treat nail fungus?
Treatment is a long process, lasting from several months to a year and requiring significant effort from the patient.
Antifungal treatment depends on the route of exposure to the affected area and can be:
- local - the use only of local ointments and creams that affect the pathogen at the site of the lesion;
- systemic - the use of oral antifungal drugs of systemic action, necessary if the infection has penetrated into the affected area through the bloodstream;
- combined - a combination of local and systemic therapy, which gives the best result.
As the most effective remedy for nail fungus, systemic preparations containing the following substances are used:
- substance ketoconazole— the effectiveness of treatment with this remedy is obtained in half of the cases, the approximate duration is 8 to 12 months;
- substance itraconazoleis a popular antifungal medication that is effective in 85% of cases. Its obvious advantage is the short duration of treatment - only 10 days;
- substance terbinafine hydrochloride- one of the best remedies that helps in 90% of cases. The duration of treatment lasts up to 4 months for onychomycosis of the hands and from 6 months for the feet. However, the appearance altered by mycosis can persist for a long time – up to 50 weeks.
Systemic treatment is used in cases of moderate or greater severity. Usually, oral antimycotics are combined with the use of local ointments. However, systemic agents have a number of side effects and can be toxic. Therefore, their use is not practiced in pregnant and lactating women, as well as people with chronic metabolic and liver diseases.
Local remedies in the form of creams and ointments do not have a toxic effect, but are treated only in mild cases - when only ⅓ of the nail plate is changed and when there is no penetrationdeep of the pathogen in the keratin tissue. This is due to the fact that local products are not able to penetrate deep into the keratin layer.
In mild cases, when treatment has been started on time, systemic agents can be discontinued. However, with an advanced clinical picture, it is sometimes necessary to surgically get rid of the damaged area, and only after that local treatment is carried out. Removal is painless and, with subsequent antifungal treatment, leads to complete recovery.