To get infected with a nail fungus is quite simple. In order to treat this pathology, various medications can be used or alternative methods can be used. This article will talk more about the properties of tea tree oil, as well as recommendations for the use of such a tool.
Disease Description
The nail fungus also has a scientific name - “onychomycosis”. It is worth noting that this pathology is quite insidious. Adverse symptoms develop gradually. The first clinical signs of onychomycosis are usually difficult to detect. Such late diagnosis usually leads to an untimely start of treatment.
Initially, onychomycosis causes only a change in the appearance of the nail plates on the arms or legs. As the disease progresses, other symptoms begin to occur in the infected person. For example, with an advanced course of the disease, a patient suffering from onychomycosis develops soreness in the fingers.
The danger of this disease also lies in the fact that it is transmitted quite quickly from an infected person to a healthy one. You can get a nail fungus even with household contact. Doctors also note family cases of such diseases.
You can suspect onychomycosis yourself. To do this, you only need to carefully monitor the appearance of your fingers. Consider the characteristic signs of the disease.
- Changing the shape of the nail plates. The edges of the plates begin to crumble, which leads to the fact that the appearance of the nails becomes careless.
- Deformation changes. The shape of the nail plate changes due to the defeat of its pathogenic fungi.
- Redness around the nail rollers. Such changes occur due to the inflammatory process, which develops in response to damage to the nail plates by fungi.
- The appearance of roughness. Healthy nails should be smooth to the touch. When affected by a fungus, they become rough and uneven.
- Change the color of the nail plates. So, nails affected by fungi, as a rule, acquire a yellowish or gray color. Brown or brown spots may also appear on the nail plates.
Treatment of onychomycosis is lengthy. Not all remedies can cope with fungi.
Often in the process of treatment, a person suffering from this disease can change drugs several times, since they turn out to be simply ineffective.
Useful properties of oil
In traditional medicine, there are quite a lot of various means that can stop the development of this disease. There are also other means that contribute to the recovery of a sick person. They should be used for a long time. It is simply impossible to achieve complete cleansing of the affected nail plates in just a couple of applications.
Tea tree oil is one of the commonly used remedies for eliminating the adverse symptoms of onychomycosis. This essential oil contains a whole complex of active substances that help in the fight against pathogenic fungi. Some components are so unique that they are quite rare in nature.
The fact that tea tree oil helps with onychomycosis, people have learned for a long time. However, only with the development of science, scientists found that this product really contains many active components that can have a harmful effect on fungi.
The spectrum of action of this oil on the body is huge. So, it is able to provide the following actions.
- Local anesthesia. After using this product, pain in the affected area decreases, inflammation disappears, itching and burning disappear.
- Increased local immunity. Reducing inflammation occurs largely due to the activation of cells of the immune system.
- Bactericidal effect. The active substances that make up the product are capable of negatively affecting not only fungi, but also viruses and bacteria that can cause dangerous diseases.
Contraindications
Tea tree oil for external use is suitable for many. However, for some pathologies it can not be used. So, you should not use this tool for people suffering from allergies or having individual hypersensitivity to this product. Also, such an oil product is not suitable for exacerbation of bronchial asthma.
Expectant mothers should not use tea tree oil without first consulting a doctor.
Tea tree oil should not be applied for allergic dermatoses. If it gets on irritated skin, it can cause soreness. People who are very sensitive to any chemicals and essential oils should not apply concentrated tea tree oil. They should dilute it with some other oil, for example, sunflower or olive, before applying the oil product.
How to choose?
The effectiveness of therapy also depends on the quality of the oil. Even in expensive stores you can buy a fake. Unfortunately, the high cost of the product does not mean at all that it is of high quality. Experts who are versed in essential oils say that it is difficult to find really good oil at present.
Better focus on trusted manufacturers. Most quality products are packaged in glass containers. Tea tree oil, produced in plastic containers, is usually of less quality.
The use of this oil product, according to many people who have tried it, is most effective in the early stages of the disease. If a fungal infection lasts a long time, then it is almost impossible to recover from it using only tea tree oil. In this case, it is necessary to prescribe intensive medications that can suppress the growth of pathogenic fungi and affect the level of systemic immunity. Such complex therapy is prescribed only by a doctor.
Application methods
You can use this tool in different ways. So, the most used methods of using this product are, as a rule, the following:
- direct rubbing into the affected areas;
- medical applications;
- antiseptic baths.
Various other components with an antifungal effect can be added to tea tree oil.
Such combination therapy helps to cope with the adverse symptoms of nail fungus much more effectively. Use these funds should be a course, to achieve improvement in well-being.
The way the oil is used depends not only on the stage of the disease, but also on the location of the damage. So, for the treatment of one nail, you can use the direct rubbing of oil into the affected nail plate. If all the nails of the foot or hands are affected by the fungus, then in this case it is more rational to use therapeutic baths.
Before you start treating onychomycosis, you should definitely be patient. Therapy of this disease in most cases is long. If several people suffer from onychomycosis in a family at once, then treatment should be carried out simultaneously for everyone. When conducting therapy, it is imperative to evaluate its effectiveness. If, against the background of the use of such a remedy, no improvement has followed, then in this case you should definitely consult a dermatologist.
Rules of Procedure
Before using the oil to rub into the nail plates, the nails should be prepared. To do this, a foot or hand affected by onychomycosis should be placed in a warm bath. The water temperature of such a bath should be absolutely comfortable. Keep nails in water for 5-8 minutes. During this time, they should become softer.
After that, the steamed nail plate should be cleaned a little. To do this, you can use pumice. Rubbing your nails too hard with a pumice stone is not worth it, as this can lead to damage.
Such a mechanical treatment is necessary only so that all the active components contained in the tea tree oil can penetrate deeper into the nail.
Medicinal oil products that can be bought in pharmacies usually have a fairly intense composition. The components present in them in some people can provoke the appearance of allergic symptoms. In order to determine if a person planning to use tea tree oil has an allergy or hypersensitivity, he should apply a small amount of the oil product to the skin. For such a test, the area near the elbow or wrist is best suited, since the skin there is quite thin.
To check individual sensitivity, it is sufficient, as a rule, to apply only a couple of drops of oil. After this, wait a few minutes. If after 10-15 minutes the color of the skin has not changed, and there are no rashes, then tea tree oil can be used to treat nails.
Apply the oil product to the entire surface of the nail. Also, a little oil should be applied to the periungual ridges. After that, clean socks should be put on your feet. It is necessary to carry out such treatment of damaged nails twice a day until the moment when the adverse symptoms of a fungal disease do not decrease.
With multiple lesions of the nails, therapeutic baths are well suited. In order to carry out such a procedure, you will need:
- water - 2.5 liters;
- baking soda - 2 tbsp. l .;
- salt (it is better to take sea) - 1 tbsp. l .;
- tea tree oil - 9-11 drops.
Water for this treatment procedure should be quite hot, but not scalding. The optimum temperature is about 45 degrees. It is necessary to add soda, sea salt and an oil product to the heated water, and then mix everything thoroughly. After that, the foot affected by the fungus should be placed in the bath and kept until the water cools down.
Then the leg should be pulled out of the water, all keratinized skin areas should be removed with special scissors, and then the nails should be treated with tea tree oil. If desired, after such a therapeutic bath, you can use on nails and medicinal ointments or varnishes with antifungal effects.
In order to achieve a good result, a similar treatment procedure should be carried out 2-3 times a week. After just one course of such baths, the structure of the nails will improve, and adverse symptoms will decrease.
Tea tree oil goes well with other products. So, adding olive oil to it, you can prepare an excellent tool for treating nails affected by fungi. The oils should be mixed in a ratio of 1: 2, since tea tree oil is quite concentrated. People who have tried this treatment note that it helps a lot in the early stages of the disease.
Apply the healing oil mixture to the affected nails twice a day. It is very important that the nails are thoroughly washed and dried before this.
It is better to apply the product with rubbing movements. The optimal course of treatment should be about a month.
Tea tree oil can also be used for lotions. To do this, a few drops of the oil product should be applied to a cotton pad. It is better to use a separate cotton pad for each affected nail. The exposure time of the oil on the nails should be about 10-12 minutes. After that, the cotton pad should be removed and the remaining oil wiped.
You can apply oil in many ways. Someone uses cotton buds for this, while others treat their nails with a pipette in a bottle with a therapeutic agent. An old toothbrush can also be used to apply oil.
There is another way to use tea tree oil to treat foot onychomycosis. It is quite simple and accessible to everyone. To do this, drip a few drops of the oil product into a regular cotton sock. After this, the sock must be worn on the leg, it is better to carry out such a procedure at night. In the morning, the sock should be removed, and the skin of the foot should be washed well from oil residues.
Tea tree oil is suitable not only for the treatment of onychomycosis, but also for the prevention of this pathology. So, a natural oil product can be added to various foot creams or lotions. The use of such funds is a good prevention of fungal infection.
You will learn more about the properties of tea tree oil from nail fungus from the following video.