Are your toes ready for sandal season? There's a new treatment for brittle, thickened tonails.
Those are the symptoms of a toenail fungal infection. And if the usual treatments haven't worked for you, there's a new approach - laser energy.
For 30 years, Tom Guidotti's been dogged by persistent toenail infections, "The whole thing was medications, and then let's see what happens, and different doctors, and medications, and putting topical."
His experience is shared by more than 40-million people, all coping with fungal infections that thrive in the nails. "Basically the way a person contracts it you need three things to happen: darkness, heat and moisture. The unwritten rule is trauma," says podiatrist Dr. John Cozzarelli.
Over the years, treatments have focused on topical therapies and oral medications, with moderate success. So now, Dr. Cozzarelli is trying a new tactic - laser, "It's a neodymium yag laser. It's a one-time treatment and it takes approximately 20 minutes to perform."
After prepping the feet with a thorough soaking, the laser goes to work. "\Bbasically what happens is it's a pencil point beam that goes through the nailplate to the nail bed to kill the fungus that's present there," says Dr. Cozzarelli.
And though only one toe may show signs of infection, he says all toes are treated, "Chances are the other digits on that toe will be infected because the fungus will colonize in their surrounding skin."
More than six months after his one and only laser treatment, Tom is blown away when he sees the before shots of his toes, "And when I saw them, I says, 'wow they were that bad, huh?'"
There are a few laser therapies going through the F-D-A approval process for the treatment of toenail fungus. The one in this story is made by patholase.
