Millions of people, mostly women, visit manicurists to have their nails professionally manicured every year. Unfortunately, the occasional result of having manicures is developing nail fungus or bacterial infections. Marta VanBeek, MD, dermatologist at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks about the dangers of developing a fungus from your manicurists:

What is nail fungus?

A nail fungus or a fungal infection of the nails is the most common type of infection that you can get in and around your nails. Fungus is ubiquitous, there are many different types. It can be found commonly in soil and the floors of public facilities, most notably public shower rooms or athletic facilities.

Is nail fungus painful or dangerous, or just cosmetically unattractive?

The signs of a nail fungus are usually a yellow, discolored, thickened nail and for most people it is just a cosmetic issue. However, for a select few, for those people who do not have an intact immune system or people who do not have good sensation in their feet, it can cause some pain and can be a health problem if not treated.

How do people acquire nail fungus?

Well, like I said, it is ubiquitous, and so the type of fungus that can cause nail infections is found almost everywhere, but commonly we think that people acquire them in public facilities. Often people will be in an athletic facility or an area of public showers where they may pick up the fungus and it may cause athlete’s foot, which is the infection of the skin with the fungus on the feet, and often from there, that can go on to infect the nails.

How is it treated?

The most defecatious treatment option is an oral medication, or a medication you take by mouth and you have to take this for many weeks before you have effective treatment. You have to wait for new nail to be laid down in order to see the effects of treatment, so it doesn’t affect the way that the nail currently looks or the way it looks while you take treatment. You have to wait for the nail to completely grow out before it looks normal after your treatment, and that can take up to 12 months for toenails and up to six months for fingernails.

What happens if fungus is left untreated?

For the vast majority of patients it really is a cosmetic issue, and if somebody chooses not to treat their fungus infection of their nails, it often is not necessarily a problem.

Specifically, how could a person develop nail fungus after visiting a manicurist?

Like other places, a place to get manicures and pedicures is often a public facility and there are lots of people that are getting their nails done and some of those people may have an existing nail infection. If the utensils in the facility are not properly cleaned, they can spread an infection from one person to another. Also, during the course of a manicure or pedicure, often they will cut your cuticles or the skin around the nail, and often areas of injury around your nail can be the entry in which fungus can infect the nail.

What should someone be looking for in a nail salon to be sure the salon is safe?

Number one, they should inquire about how instruments are used, whether new instruments are used for each patient, and how they are sterilized between patients. There are a lot of salons now requiring customers to purchase their own packet of instruments that they just bring with them each time they get their nails done, and that’s an excellent solution to the problem. Other places that don’t offer that option, it’s just important to inquire about how the instruments are sterilized and if the facilities are sterilized between patients. And that is more than just rubbing them down with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, they need to be sterilized.

If someone visits a salon and later develops a fungus, should they report the fungus back to the salon or state cosmetology board or both?

I would advise all of the above. I think that most nail salons would really want to know if there was a problem and go through the steps of trying to address that problem, so I think it’s important to contact the nail salon. Also, it’s important to contact the Board of Cosmetology; the Board of Cosmetology is under the purview of the Department of Public Health in the state of Iowa, and they are the regulating board that goes in and inspects these facilities to ensure that they have taken the proper steps to make it safe, so I would definitely recommend contacting both.

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