Treatment Approaches for Nail Fungus Infection

A long history of infections in humans and a relative lack of effective remedies have lead to a variety of treatment approaches for nail fungus infection. The infection, onychomycosis in medical language, strikes up to thirteen percent of people, often as they reach their senior years, and some authorities believe the incidence is increasing. Toenails are more often infected than fingernails, and males are more often afflicted than females.

Until quite recently, the medical profession has not paid much attention to dealing with nail fungus. Why? Because many infections are “asymptomatic,”—that is, they don’t cause inflammation, pain, disability, or illness, but are merely “cosmetic,”—treatment approaches for nail fungus infection are not high on the medical priority list. The psychological stress that comes with having ugly distorted nails is overlooked.

Sadly the modern pharmaceutical treatment approaches for nail fungus infection are not the magic bullet most people are looking for. They tend to be very expensive, they require a long treatment period, they don’t always work, and they occasionally cause serious side effects. Dealing with nail fungus the medical way is still a gamble at best. People who don’t want to go that route can choose an alternative remedy, or go with a traditional home remedy.

The disadvantage of the non-prescription treatment approaches for nail fungus infection (traditional, home, natural, or alternative remedies) is that very few have been tested in clinical trials to see if they really work—you must trust to hearsay and anecdotal evidence. (While this is discouraging, it’s important to remember that clinical trials of the prescription drugs have clearly shown that they do not work in a substantial number of cases.) Dealing with nail fungus using non-prescription methods requires trial and error, and considerable common sense.

Before staring any treatment, have onychomycosis properly diagnosed by a medical professional to rule out other nail abnormalities. When researching alternative treatment approaches for nail fungus infection, you might want to investigate vinegar, bleach, hydrogen peroxide, Vick’s Vaporub, Listerine, Saprox, clove oil and other herbal essential oils, tea tree oil, and pau d’arco.

Effectiveness of Tea Tree Oil for Nail Fungus

Tea tree oil is currently a popular alternative treatment for fungal nail infections (onychomycosis), but has anyone really studied the effectiveness of tea tree oil for nail fungus? A major argument against many alternative remedies is that there’s no scientific evidence to prove that they work: tea tree oil is an exception. This essential oil has long been studied by a group of researchers at the University of Western Australia, and the evidence for antifungal activity is growing.

Recent research on tea tree oil has typically tested the compound against disease causing organism under laboratory conditions, that is, in the laboratory rather than in people. The work has shown that a variety of fungi and yeast that cause infection in humans are killed when exposed to tea tree oil. This type of testing, however, doesn’t conclusively prove the effectiveness of tea tree oil for nail fungus in real infections, where other factors may come into play. For example, in onychomycosis, a topical treatment must be able to penetrate the hard material of the nail in order to reach the fungus growing underneath.

Research on tea tree oil that includes clinical trials (the treatment of real patients) is still rather scanty. In one trial, tea tree oil was as effective as clotrimazole, an antifungal pharmaceutical, achieving cure or improvement in almost two thirds of patients. A second trial achieved cure or improvement in 80% of patients treated with a combination of tea tree oil and butenafine, a synthetic topical antifungal; however, it was not clear whether the drug combination or the butenafine was the effective treatment. This small sample of clinical trials still leaves the effectiveness of tea tree oil for nail fungus in question.

While we wait for more research on tea tree oil, the onychomycosis sufferer must make a choice based on anecdotal evidence. Many people have reported success with treating fungal nail infections with tea tree oil or blends of tea tree oil and other essential plant oils. Unfortunately, onychomycosis is difficult to treat and often responds poorly even to the prescription drugs that are presently available.

Source for this article on the effectiveness of tea tree oil for nail fungus: Melaleuca alternifolia (Tea Tree) Oil: a Review of Antimicrobial and Other Medicinal Properties. By C. F. Carson, K. A. Hammer, and T. V. Riley. Clinical Microbiology Reviews, Jan. 2006. pg. 50-62.