Hi, I’m Dr. Leo Krawetz of Healthy Feet Podiatry. One of the more common problems that I see in my office is fungus in the toenails. This is a very difficult problem to get rid of. There are treatments for fungus in the toenails although the cure rates are very low. In fact, the oral medication only has a cure rate of around 38% and the topical medication has cure rate of around 8%. Although these medicines can be used, there is no guarantee that the fungus will not come back. Many times, in probably close to 100% of the cases, the fungus does return within a 5‑year period. I’d be more than happy to prescribe one of these medicines too, but there are risks with taking the oral medication. There is a small chance that it could affect your liver so a simple blood test is done approximately three weeks after taking the medicine. If this does not work, another option is removing the toenail that has a fungus permanently so it never grows back. Even though this seems like a radical treatment, it does obviously cure the problem of the fungus in the toenail. This procedure consists of numbing the toe and removing the nail and then a chemical is applied to the base of the nail so the nail won’t grow back ever again. My patients that have this done usually complain of persistent pain in the nail and is usually failed in oral or topical fungal medicine. If you would like to contact me or have a treatment done in my office, please visit my website. Thank you