January 16, 2019
For years, a big toenail bothered me. It was ugly. The doctor said it was nail fungus. There are medications that the doctor could have prescribed, but he advised against them. He mentioned liver damage as a potential side effect to these medications. Was I willing to risk my liver for an ugly toenail? I kept the ugly toenail.
There are treatments over the counter. I tried them all. They did not work.
I soaked my foot in salts, in vinegar, in strong soap. No results.
I went the natural route and had mild success with tea tree essential oil. I also got decent results with lavender essential oil. The nail looked somewhat better.
I could live with that, even if I was not happy about it. I stocked up on nail polish for the summer.
Last year, I had to renovate my bathroom. Mold was growing under the tiles. I was waking up with pounding headaches.
I started shopping for the remodel and came across articles about copper tubs. They looked nice, in an “old becomes new again” fashion. Interestingly, copper is supposed to be antimicrobial, and low to no maintenance. Why not a copper tub?
I have been taking two to three baths in that copper tub weekly for the past five months.
About a month ago, while lounging in the bathtub, spacing out, my right big toe went out of the water. Something was odd. I looked at it. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe the bad nail was on the left big toe? Both feet went out of the water.
I could not see any discolored part at the nail bed. We are in winter, and I stopped applying nail polish some months ago. I also stopped the essential oils.
I got out of the tub and removed the rest of the polish. The tip of my right toe nail still looked thick and yellowish. But the rest of the nail looked great. I cut off the tip. My nail was perfect! No more thick nail. No more weird smell. No more yellowish and ugly color. No more brittleness. The fungus was gone!
A copper tub may not be for everyone. But what about a real copper bucket or basin, big enough for a nice foot soak? A twenty minutes warm water foot soak every other day in copper may be all you need to get rid of the fungus under your nail.
Here are some images of what you can expect from your copper soaks, courtesy of a friend that tried this “cure”, and had the smarts to take pictures to document the process.
The first image has been taken one month in treatment. The nails still look bad and will keep on looking bad until grown out. But the base of the nail is now red and alive:
In this second image, the same nails, four months in treatment:
That last image is the almost final result:
A year ago, if someone told me that all I had to do to get rid of nail fungus is to relax my foot in a copper bowl filled with warm water, I would have laughed.
Today, I am not laughing, I am smiling big every time I see my fungus free, healthy nail! If you hate your toenail fungus as much as I hated mine, give it a try. All you have to lose is the fungus.
Katrin L.
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