Toe fungus infections are very embarrassing and disheartening once they become severe and gradually tend to cause inflammation, itching and pain. If they are not taken care of and allowed to persist, they may cause serious invasive infections that may predisposed an individual to more serious health issues.
Many people often resort to conventional medical treatments after having being unable to resist the pain, irritation and embarrassment, and then suffer from the undue side effects like rashes, nausea, vomiting and sometimes even liver damage. Sometimes, such risky treatments become really a matter of concern for all, and therefore many people want to avoid such treatments.
7 Effective Home Remedies for Toe Fungus
Those who want to avoid such treatments can do so, because there are many alternative and natural home remedies available to effectively deal with such toe fungus infections. Among such home remedies, the below given home remedies are a few, but still very effective.
Use Tea Tree Oil
Tea tree oil with its natural anti-fungal properties is very effective oil for toe fungus. This oil is natural, and therefore can be directly applied to the affected area of the foot and toe nails for a few times in a day to help prevent the fungus.
Personal Hygiene
When you wash your feet ensure that you wash it without using soap, and then dry it completely with a neat cotton towel. Prefer the shoes that offer maximum aeration along with cotton socks, and clean your shoes with chlorine water and wash your socks and bleach them with chlorine to prevent re-infection. After cleaning the shoes, sprinkle powder containing anti-fungal agents like boric acid, tinactin, etc. When you feel the urge to rub your affected foot, do not rub your foot.
Use Garlic
The antimicrobial properties of garlic are known since ancient times, and it is very effective in both ways: internal and external. Chew a few cloves of garlic early in the morning and apply garlic paste or garlic extract on the affected toe twice or thrice in a day.
If you can get garlic extract, then take two teaspoonfuls thrice daily. Similarly, you can make compresses by soaking cotton in garlic extract, and then use such compresses on affected area two to three times daily.
Use Probiotics or Dietary Supplements
The protective bacteria that are normally present in the body as helpful bacteria are called probiotics. The major class of probiotics include acidophilus and lactobacillus. Dairy products and fermented food products contain a healthy percentage of these bacteria, and one such popular product is yogurt. Supplemental probiotics are now commercially available. You can consume supplementary probiotics to enhance their percentage in your body, which is necessary to remove the pathogenic fungi and bacteria from the body.
Use Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple-cider vinegar can be applied to the infected area with a neat cotton ball to remove the fungal colonies from the dead skin and to make the area clean and scale free. This procedure will help in easing the irritation and itching, and removing the healthy fungal population from the wound.
Use Grapefruit Seed Extract
Grapefruit Seed extract is a natural disinfectant because it contains active anti-fungal agents. When you use it as a lotion and paint it on the affected region two to three times in a day, at least for three to six weeks, you can witness healthy positive results.
Use Ginger
Both garlic and ginger have excellent antimicrobial properties due to the abundance of many active antimicrobial and anti-fungal ingredients in them.
Drinking a cup of ginger tea prepared from 25 grams of fresh ginger root two to three times a day proves to be very effective, especially when you have fungal infections because the antifungal activity of ginger has been clinically proven. You can also apply this tea tincture to the infected foot by making compresses and then applying them to the infected area.
Caution: Please use Remedies after Proper Research and Guidance. You accept that you are following any advice at your own risk and will properly research or consult healthcare professional.