Talk:Onychomycosis
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[edit] Home remedies
Onchomycosis can be caused by many different fungi, and many other conditions like a psoriatic nail and paronychia can look so much like it that dermatologists still need to have a lab workup done. What was the causal agent, if any, of the wife's onychomycosis that was relieved with vinegar? How can anyone possibly give universal medical advice based on one person's kitchen experiments with the application of 19th century hygiene principles to an (I strongly suspect) undiagnosed condition?
Mercurochrome contains mercury and is banned in the US. All sorts of these common home disinfectants were tested against fungal skin and nail infections in the 1910's to 1950's and the only one that stood out as somewhat effective was Whitfield's ointment, with the active ingredient benzoic acid. But even it doesn't stand up to scientific comparison as a serious onychomycosis remedy. The common fungi causing dermatophyte onychomycosis are too deeply seated in the nail to be affected by materials applied to the surface (unless the materials are combined with chemical nail softeners under occlusion). Mercurochrome is commonly used in developing countries to treat fungal ear canal infestation (otomycosis), but there the fungus is right at the surface. Mercurochrome can't even penetrate to kill the endospores within spore-forming bacteria.
Onychomycosis isn't life-threatening but casual treatment recommendations based on anecdotes are no more helpful here than they are in any other disease. No doubt carrot juice and staying optimistic cured somebody's wife's cancer somewhere, but there's a serious ethical problem with extending this observation into a general prescription. Yes, any individual could make a novel observation -- but there's nothing novel about applying vinegar, iodine, garlic, lemon peel, oregano, etc. against fungal skin infections. It's been done. Tea tree oil is still being investigated but results are mixed (for references go to Entrez PubMed website and search on keywords: tea tree oil onychomycosis. Also: tea tree oil tinea. Also: tea tree oil dermatophyte). Keywords for the otomycosis statement above are otomycosis mercurochrome.
Summerbell 18:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
what is the life cycle of onychomycosis
- Mercurochrome cured it for me. Unfortunately, this probably counts as original research. -- ProveIt 17:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Anyone interested in a picture for this article?
I could get one. The question is, would anyone really want to see it?
- The article lacks a good quality image, go for it. Pgr94 05:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Vinegar
My wife had an infection and cured it by soaking the infected toe for 30 minutes in vinegar every day for 3 months. She would keep the nail as trimmed as possible the whole time. Don't cause your body stress with something like Lamisil. Save your money and health.
[edit] FDA Topical Antifungal Monograph
I wanted to add something on the FDA OTC Topical Antifungal Monograph, but all I could find were some very general bits of info on the FDA website (see [1] and [2]). I also haven't been able to find anything on the FDA's 1994 ruling that said that no OTC anti-fungal product was effective on nails, and required the wording "this product is not effective on scalp or nails" on all OTC anti-fungal products (even if they were still allowed to use trademarks such as Fungi-Nail!). The closest I could find was this DOC file Comparison of Labeling for All Topical Antifungals Treating Athlete’s Foot. Can anyone provide better information? BlankVerse 15:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
