Bad-smelling toenails can be a huge cause of insecurity and discomfort for people. Because smell is socially linked to hygiene practice, feeling like your toes are noticeably smelly can be embarrassing. Additionally, people may not want to be around you if your feet smell bad.

While normal bad-smelling feet caused by poor hygiene and washing practices can be treated fairly easily, bad-smelling toenails are a different issue. Often, when the toenails themselves are smelly, this is indicative of a toenail fungus. 

Smelly Toenails

Bad-smelling toenails are frequently caused by an infection with fungal spores. This type of infection is fairly common and is spread between people very easily. Because it is so contagious, it can be difficult to pinpoint where the fungus originated from. 

However, toenail fungus can infect even the cleanest of people. Because the spores are infectious organisms, they can infect any nail bed that they come into contact with. The fungus grows more easily in people with certain immune diseases, but this is a condition that can happen to anyone. 

Bad smelling toenails because of fungus are often worse in the summer as well. Because fungal spores thrive in dark, damp environments, the summer is their best time to breed and grow. During the summer, people’s shoes and socks are very sweaty and damp, allowing the fungus to thrive.

Symptom of Toenail Fungus

As the fungus grows, the smell becomes more and more strong. Additionally, the smell itself is exacerbated by the heat of summer. Heat tends to make scents stronger, so the cheesy smell under your toes will be worse on a hot summer day.

To determine if your bad-smelling toenails are from a fungal infection or from something else, there are a few things you can examine. First of all, if the smell originates from the nail bed and not the skin of the foot, this is a sign that a toenail fungus could be a cause. Make sure to wash your feet well every day in the shower, and see if the smell improves.

If it doesn’t, a fungus could be the reason why. Washing your feet isn’t sufficient to remove the fungus from under the nail bed, so the fungal smell will persist through cleaning practices. Lastly, take note of if the smell gets worse when you cut your toenails. Because the fungus lives under the nail, trimming the nails can cause fungal debris to enter the environment.

Other Toenail Fungus Symptoms

Bad-smelling toenails also usually come alongside other symptoms of toenail fungus. This condition is largely aesthetic and causes changes in the nail’s texture and color. These changes can range from subtle variations to drastic, extreme changes. Usually, fungal toenails will have some sort of discoloration.

This can be yellow, brown, white, or black in color and usually starts out as a small dot or stripe on the nail’s surface. As the nail fungus infection becomes more severe, the dots and stripes will start to grow on the surface of the nail until the entire nail is covered in discoloration. 

Treatment Options

While trying options like deodorant can be helpful for temporary relief of the smell, to permanently deal with the issue you need to treat the root cause. However, eliminating the fungus from under your nail bed can be a tricky, often frustrating journey to endeavor. Many common treatment options for fungus are ineffective, and using them can feel disheartening.

Particularly ineffective are over-the-counter topical medications for fungus. While prescriptions are slightly more effective, they still sometimes require up to a year to see any results, if they come at all. Oral antifungal medications prescribed by doctors are more effective than topical medications but come with severe risks. These medications have to pass through the blood to get into the nail bed, and in the process pass through the liver.

They can cause damage to the liver in the process, which can be especially dangerous for people with pre-existing conditions affecting liver function. These medications also require blood screenings before and during treatment, which is another downside.

Laser for Toenail Fungus

However, bad-smelling toenails can be treated in a safer, more effective way. Laser treatments like the PinPointe laser have the benefit of not using any chemicals to treat the fungus. The PinPointe laser has no side effects, and is safe for a majority of people, even with pre-existing conditions. The only pre-existing condition that conflicts with the laser treatment is peripheral neuropathy from diabetes.

Also, the PinPointe laser only requires one treatment to completely eliminate the fungus from the nail bed. You can schedule an appointment for a consultation with one of our licensed podiatrists at 1-(800) 672-0625. To learn more about the laser itself and how it works, you can also visit our website for more information.