My current status

So, it has become obvious at this point that I don't post much anymore. =)

The reason for this is pretty much that I don't have much to write. My toenails have been the area of battle for the last couple of years and I can't say I have had success. I kept treating them with the same procedure as described in previous posts, mechanical debridement of the nail by filing it down to as thin as possible using an electrical drill with a sander tip, then, with the nail either gone or a tenth of it's normal thickness I would apply Lamisil Once regularly. Lamisil is a proper medicine, there is nothing alternative about it. It went through the normal processes, years upon years of trials and research, millions and millions spent by a pharmaceutical company and to this day it (terbinafine) is still the substance that has the highest percentage of success in fungus sufferers. In other words: as legit as something can ever be.

It cured my fingernails 100 %, no trace of infection and I have been healthy for over 2 years now, see my posts from early 2010: http://battlenailfungus.blogspot.se/2010/03/new-photos.html and from late 2010: http://battlenailfungus.blogspot.se/2010/08/my-procedure.html . My toenails have not had the same success.

Working with toenails is more difficult, your back hurts as you carefully work your tools and try to see what you are doing while not hurting yourself. It also proved more difficult for me to treat them twice a day because it is more of a hassle taking off your shoes and socks when you realize you forgot to apply the gel.

A third thing: socks and shoes make for a warm, humid environment which is ideal living conditions for fungus. Your hands are out all day, breathing. How many hours a day do you walk around barefoot? These circumstances make me think it is much more difficult to treat toenail fungus than fingernail fungus. I have been a bit on-and-off with my treatment, at most I have applied it once a day but I never had a layoff of more than a week or two, I did however not see any significant improvement (3 nails seem healthy, the others are bad)so this year I simply stopped doing it and was thinking about what I was going to try next.

When I stopped treating it completely I noticed it actually went from not getting any better to getting WORSE. I don't know, but I assume the gel, as I use it, on me, was able to keep the fungus somewhat in check although not cure it, so I started using it again just for precautionary reasons and now I apply it maybe 2-3 times a week. I will move on to another procedure but I just have to settle on one. I hate spending time every day over several months on something that had no hope of working in the first place, and filling the wallets of inhuman charlatans and quacks, such as the people behind the zetaclear scam (get a job, you zetaclear people) is something I really would hate to do, see my blog on fake remedies such as zetaclear: http://battlenailfungus.blogspot.se/2010/10/popular-and-heavily-advertised-fungus.html .


I will drop back quite soon with a new treatment regimen for me personally and I will keep you updated on my progress/regress. I have just been lost for some time and holding out hope for my old treatment to keep working wonders on other parts of my body, but I will have to find something else. As said before, I make zero cents off of this blog and I will never do anything to promote a non-effective, heavily advertised remedy that contains only vinegar, water and perfume. Whatever I choose to try will be given a lot of thought, researched, and viewed in a scientific way.


I hope as many as possible choose to follow this blog because, no matter how rarely it happens, I will post only correct information regarding my progress and current treatment methods.

I had a request for a description of the "dremel-like" machine I was using to file down my nails, well, here it is. There is nothing fancy about it, just an old high-speed drilling machine with different tools to insert into the chuck. The 2 upper tools are the ones I use, and the one on the top does 90 % of the work, the other one is just for the last piece of the nail close to the cuticle.

It has adjustable speed, normally I start out on slow speed and increase it slightly when I get into it (and bored). It is a tedious process but I recommend doing one foot and maybe the other one the next day, or your back may start to hurt and you will not be too thorough anymore....

I would say any similar machine will do, for example the cheap ones off ebay since it requires no engine power or super speed. Get for example the one on http://www.ebay.com/itm/DREMEL-400-XPR-Rotary-Tool-With-Accessories-And-Paperwork-New-Exec-Condition-/160802040751?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25708c6baf  or try maybe this one, even cheaper: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Cordless-Rotary-Tool-40pc-Kit-Dremel-Tool-Bits-Fit-Dog-Nail-Groomer-Grinder-/170843162711?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c70bc857

If you get just any tool and it does not carry the suitable sanding tips you see in the pic (the top one the most important one, it also works just fine without the pointy tip, you can use a cylinder-shaped one), just go to your local hardware store and ask for dremel acessories and they will most likely have a big shelf with them. They are expensive, but only one is not expensive...


There you go, good luck. =)

Spambots

Blogs and forums are littered with posts from spambots, that is automated programs that register and post fairly nonsensical short posts and linking to the scam website, such scam websites include

http://www.melbourne S P A M podiatrist.com.au/ , www.nailfungus SPAM treatment.net , www.fungal SPAM nails.com and so on. I am going to start deleting them now since almost most posts on this blog are scam posts. While browsing the web, do keep your skeptical goggles on at all times.

(The website adresses have been distorted so their google results won't be helped. Thanks to Lee for the advice)

Just dropping by: Scholl fungal nail treatment

One poster commented on my last post and said he/she would now try a treatment sold by Scholl (www.scholl.com). I don't have too much to say about it but here is just my immediate view of it:

Firstly, the big flashy ad that claims the product will kill 99,9 % of all nail fungus is of course suspicious and in all probability a piece of sensationalist advertising exaggerating or manufacturing completely the abilities of the product.

A complete list of ingredients cannot be found which is also a warning sign. They say the product will work by lowering the PH of the nail and make it inhospitable to fungus, sounds fair enough. The exact same thing happens when you soak your toes in household vinegar and it is a fact that fungus does not thrive in too acid environments. How effective this treatment is for actually lowering the PH far enough to kill fungus is unknown. They claim it to be scientifically verified but do not link to any studies or trials.

What the PH-adjusting agent is they do not tell on the website. The permeation-enhancing "formula" is said to be urea, panthenol and glycerin. Sounds OK, anecdotal evidence from the web point to urea being useful for dissolving the nail structure, glycerine is sometimes used in ointments and similar products and panthenol is seemingly good for penetration of the skin according to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12113650 .

All in all it seems like a decent product, it can probably do some good for some people. However, by the look of it it does not seem to bring anything new really, just another mix of substances that have been on the agenda before (sans the PH-lowering main substance that is not named. If I may take a wild guess it is probably vinegar as usual).

On the flip side the formulation is a bit more interesting than for example the huge internet scam that is zetaclear which is pretty much only vinegar and water at a hefty price, and other products. Urea is interesting and panthenol is probably not bad. I will stick with complete debridement of the nail and application of conventional prescription substance (lamisil once) but if you want to give this a go you are probably not without hope. Be sure to update others with the result either here or on other websites.

Before and after. =)

Zetaclear scam. And other stuff. And an interesting tale...

I don't post much these days, since my fingernails were cured it does not take up much of my spare time anymore. But I do want to stay active in the hope that more people find this blog and are treated to something not easy to come by or distinguish in the internet world of nail fungus sufferers: Facts and information posted with no hidden agenda, no bias, and no bullshit. I may keep posting sporadically but it will remain useful, so I hope that those who appreciate puts it on their watchlist, or recommends it to others.

As you understand, I am not associated with any drug manufacturer and I make zero money off of this (even if I did, the number of viewers could never make me a cent) so the only 2 reasons I write is: 1. I want others to be helped with a problem with which I am more than familiar. and 2. I am annoyed with people who does not want to help but only want to make money off of people remaining unhappy, such as the people behind the zetaclear scam. If you see any ads whatsoever they are Blogger's own ads and not mine.



When you read an internet tale about somebody who had tremendous success with a nail fungus treatment you should read it, but read it with an ounce or two of healthy, sensible scepticsism (sp?). It could be completely true. It could be completely true. The statement could be truthful, but we don't know the poster. We don't know his or hers life, we have not seen their nails, before or after. If they post pics, we don't know if it is their nails.


So should we just disregard everything we read? Absolutely not. But we should make asensible decision based on what we know, and if it something that should be checked out, give google a minute and check it out.

Could there be bias? Most of us have probably sometime taken a remedy, or a drug, or knocked on wood, or done something that we really wanted to work, and made ourselves believe it did. Only in some time did we realise it didn't, and we were only fooling ourselves. If you don't know the basic principles about the placebo effect I strongly recommend you to search and find out about it. When people really, really want to be helped they tend to convince themselves that they really are being helped, and only in retrospect do they find out that they only wanted to believe, but their nails or whatever still looked the same. A nail could be 100 % infected but start to lose a bit of the yellow, and you would think it is getting better, a small change becomes a big change in your mind when it may in fact be just the normal things that go on in a nail ravaged by fungus.



Could the poster be a scammer? It only takes minutes to write a post. Could there be a manufacturer of a drug posting as a pretend nail fungus sufferer? Or a person who sells said drug pretending to be a "patient", writing a fake review? Maybe even a spambot, automatically writing a nonsensical post? We don't know. But it is good to think about the possibilities, and know that we don't know......

You are unlikely to find deliberately falsified success stories about conventional treatments manufactured by large established companies, simply because they probably would not go through the hassle. Their drugs have passed all the scientific trials, went on market, are sold in state pharmacies (where I live) and their companies make profits in millions and millions of dollars. If even a thousand people buy their drug because of a fake post it is not enough to make an impact on their overall profit. They simply will not bother. If they wanted to go on forums and blogs marketing their drugs they could do it more easily and effectively and point to all the scientific trials that showed their drug had positive results, if it hadn't, they would be unable to market it. If it hadn't, their reputation would suffer, and money would be lost in the millions.

What about smaller maufacturers that make drugs that are outside of the established medicine(which is just an elaborate way of saying "NOT proven to work at all")? They have enormous reasons to create scams, their sales could increase tenfold if marketed correctly.

These companies may often, or seldom use these methods. But it is important to know that when reading a post, and you don't know the person writing it, the poster may have had something to gain from people believing it.

If he had nothing to gain, he is unlikely to have gone through the hassle of writing a false post.

If he had something to gain, maybe he did write a false post.


The reason I pick out Zetaclear in the jungle of nonsense mumbo-jumbo nail fungus remedies is, as said before, because they make a ridiculously huge effort to put these false claims on the web. Nonyx is another one that only contains water and vinegar under fancy names, but the Zetaclear scam simply takes the price.

This post is long now and must be posted, see you later for the mentioned tale.... =)

Toenails

Top: left foot treated with amorolfine nail lacquer.




Left big toe, Amorolfine nail lacquer. Note how still-infected thicker nail has grown out halfway.

Right foot, daily application of lamisil single-dose 1 % solution, same stuff that left my fingernails 99% cured in about 4 months.

Right toenail, lamisil. Thick nail has grown out halfway. The red dots are marks from going a bit hard with the grinding machine

Will file them down again (not excited about it, it is a boring and tiring process) and continue treatment. The treatment that is least successful I will discontinue and I will keep doing what works, be it amorolfine or terbinafine. On the foot that is not doing best I will try a new treatment, not sure what yet. We'll see.


EDIT: I checked out my first post from august 2009 with pictures from then. I had forgotten how bad it was, my toenails have actually come a looong way! Both feet, although still infected, have improved enormously. Fantastic. :D