Reply #30: Unrelated. [View All]

The nail fungus is systemic, not topical. It's just as likely to infect fingernails as toenails, and it has nothing to do with wearing gloves, either. (The nail bed is always moist, shoes or no shoes. Our bodies are like that.) Topical treatments have limited efficacy. It also seems to have a geneic correlation, at least insofar as susceptibility. Despite the fact that many people in my family (stepfather, father, uncle, etc.) have had it, I knew nothing about it until I needed treatment for the pain of what I thought was an ingrown toenail. I've now learned that somewhere around 20-30% of the population will have it, most often in their later years. The "preferrred" treatment (by doctors, not patients) is to remove the nail entirely. Not many folks, women particularly, are sanguine about such "disfigurement". Thus, the "magic pill" finds its most hopeful audience among patients who'd often rather risk kidney or liver damage than the cosmetic damage, even underplaying the fact that the medication must be taken for anywhere from 6 months to a year -- often with little or no ameliorative effect.