Laser Therapy in Podiatry

Laser therapy has come along way in the profession of podiatry. Lasers in medicine have a multitude of uses.  In a podiatry practice there are several uses for a laser. There are various lasers for wart therapy. Laser treatment for wart therapy are classified in two categories. The first is needing to excise or remove the warty lesion. There are two types of lasers that can treat this type of wart. One is a surface laser, which does not require injecting the patient to treat the wart.  Surface lasers for warts on the foot and ankle are performed in an office or hospital setting, depending on the case.  Surface laser is provided in multiple treatments. With surface lasers, in addition to no injection or numbing, the patient also has no postoperative healing period.   The other form of wart therapy starts with excising the wart on the foot or lesion with a scalpel blade and then using the laser on the affected area.  This is a one shot deal where after you excise the wart, it is eliminated.  When removing a wart with a laser on the foot; the postoperative course depends on how big a lesion is and how many.  Sometimes if the area removed is very large the postoperative healing can be considerably longer.  With this type of laser you can also remove scars that develop in different parts of the foot and ankle.

 The other form of lasers podiatrists use is a laser used for fungal nails.  Fungal nails are also known as onychomycosis.  Years ago there were not many affective remedies. These included completely removing the thick fungal nails permanently, taking liver toxic antifungal medications, and a daily application of topical medication that never truly penetrated the nail to kill the fungus.  In this new technological age many foot doctors are using this kind of laser to eradicate nail fungus. Patients typically have to come in for about 3-5 treatments.  The laser has a beam that sweeps over the toenails and pours oxygen into the nail and nail tissue.  Lasers oxygenate the tissue, which effectively kills the fungus in the toenail.  Podiatrists specialize in the care and treatment of toenails and have found that this is a safe and effective way of treating onychomycosis. 

Other things that need to be considered are shoe gear that is too tight or does not have enough depth for the toes to lie comfortably inside.   Evaluation by a podiatrist can help to ensure that the shoe you are wearing lets the foot rest comfortably in the shoe. If the foot is too crowded in the shoe it is likely that the toenails will get damaged.  The main reason for nail fungus is trauma, so if we remove the trauma that the shoe inflicts on the nail, we have a better chance of stopping recurrence of the nail fungus. 

Lastly there are a few other things that a podiatrist can give to their patients to put inside their shoes.  Feet sweat constantly and the sweat that builds up can cause fungus in the skin. It is important to treat the shoe and prevent the spread of fungus from the skin to the shoe and back to the skin again. As you can see it is quite important to have a qualified podiatrist evaluate your nail problems completely.  In our office we evaluate the nail, the skin of the foot, the shoe gear,  and the inside of the shoe gear to effectively treat onychomycosis of the toenail. To date laser is the most effectively nontoxic way of treating nail fungus.