Toenail fungus infections in children are common. Nail fungus can be found anywhere. Like on nail clippers, on the floor of a locker room, and even on the carpet in your home. To be able to take precautions to protect your family from nail fungus, you should know why children could be at an increased risk. Nail fungus is contagious and can easily spread between people when hygiene isn’t a top priority. This often leaves children susceptible to the fungus if they don’t know how to maintain proper shoe and foot hygiene, especially since children participate in activities that may put them at risk without caution.

Toenail fungus might make nails look ugly, but it will not kill them. Toenail fungus in children, however, can hurt your kid’s self-esteem. Children might start feeling “ugly” and “deformed.” And these are not feelings that are well dealt with in adolescent years. Your child may even feel dirty because the fungus may cause an odor. This can be extremely stressful. Fungal nail infections in children may cause feelings of inadequacy, as well as problems with body image.

How do children get toenail fungus?

Although this might sound crazy to some parents, children can definitely become infected with nail fungus. In fact, people of any age can become infected with nail fungus, young or old. It does not matter if the person is seven, seventeen, or seventy. While it is true that older adults are indeed more likely to become infected, a younger age certainly does not make someone immune to a nail infection.

Children often participate in more sports and physical activities, which increases their risk of toenail fungus for a few reasons. First of all, this means that their feet are sweatier more often, which facilitates the growth of fungus. Fungus thrives in damp, moist environments. Sweaty socks and shoes after sports practice are a great place for fungus to grow, so make sure to have your children immediately change out of their shoes after sports. 

Sports increase the risk of toenail fungus for another reason: the changing room. Changing rooms are great places for fungus to reside and are ideal for fungus spread. When one person with a fungus walks barefoot across the changing room, they are depositing fungus onto the floor that will be able to survive until another person walks over it. Because of this, one person with fungus walking barefoot across a changing room can give the fungus to multiple other people. To prevent your children from catching a fungus in a changing room, make sure to let them know to never walk barefoot in public areas like this.

Toenail Fungus in Shoes

Diagnosing Fungal Nails in Children

If you have a suspicion that your child has nail fungus, check for the following signs:

Best Toenail Fungus Treatments for Children

  • Topical Medication: Topical medications rarely work for adults, but children see better results. This might be due to the way their nails grow at a faster pace. Our doctors will typically recommend starting with topical medications since they help in less severe cases.
  • Laser Treatment: Prevent the cheesy, smelly odor of toenails from becoming noticeable to other people. The root cause should be treated as quickly as possible. The podiatrists in our network near you will be able to treat your kid’s fungus with the PinPointe laser immediately.

As you explore nail fungus treatment options for your children, you may have come across a few different options. You will then look at their pros and cons. Taking that into consideration, it is not surprising that you are left wondering. Is laser treatment a safe and appropriate option to treat your child’s nail fungus? 

When you look at other treatment options for nail fungus for your child, they seem to have a laundry list of drawbacks. Over-the-counter topical treatments are less than 1% effective, and prescription topical treatments are barely any more at 6%. Plus, you cannot trust your children not to touch their feet or put their hands in their mouths. While oral medications are much more effective, they have severely detrimental effects on the liver. Oral medication can result in liver damage or even death. While your child is on the oral pill for nail fungus, they will have to go for regular testing to monitor their liver health, which should be an automatic disqualifier. 

On the other hand, laser treatment using the FDA-approved PinPointe laser is completely safe for your child. The laser uses a concentrated heat source to kill nail fungus through heat damage, at a level that is painless and harmless to your child’s skin. Since it specifically targets the nail fungus, it is harmless to the skin or the nail. There is also no downtime or painful recovery period. 

Fungus Infections

Nail Fungus Affecting Children

While it is true that nail fungus is especially common in adults and even more so in seniors, this does not mean that children are completely immune to nail fungus. There are a few different reasons that children may be prone to fungus.

Nail fungus prevention relies heavily on personal hygiene, and children are notorious for having poor personal hygiene. Children often forget to wash their hands or feet, and even if they do, they do not necessarily dry them. If your children dress themselves, they may end up repeating shoes and socks when they sweat. This leads to their nails being stuck in a moist environment, which is exactly what nail fungus needs to grow.

As children run around and play, they sometimes end up barefoot. This includes places like on the playground or by the pool, where potentially other children may be running around barefoot as well, and may be spreading nail fungus. These are common places where children may catch nail fungus. As they walk around the house and on carpets barefoot, they can spread the nail fungus to other members of the family. They are also less likely to pay attention to their nails, and so would not catch nail fungus early if they did begin to develop symptoms. It is likely that the infection would progress too far before they would notice anything amiss.

Why Age Doesn’t Protect Against Nail Fungus

Back when you were just a child, you would hate getting sick. If you were infected with nail fungus back then, it would have been even worse than a common cold.

Contrary to popular belief, children are not immune to becoming infected with nail fungus. In fact, it does not matter how old you are. People of any age can become infected with nail fungus. Older adults are indeed more likely to become infected due to their weakened immune systems. Even people in their 20s can be infected. Children are no exception either.

For a parent who has a child with nail fungus, you will need to prepare them for what to expect. Another child becomes aware of the fungus. Teasing might not only make a child upset at the time of the attack but also cause deeper emotional trauma later in life. In addition, you should also explain to the child that it will be possible for the nail fungus to go away, but it will likely take some time, and treatment will be required. Laser treatment will most likely be the best kind of treatment for your child because of how quick, safe, and painless it is.

Laser Treatment for Toenail Fungus

If you think you or one of your children has a toenail fungus, you should seek an FDA-approved treatment from a licensed podiatrist. The PinPointe Laser is the best option on the market and can cure fungus in just one treatment. Our nail doctor in Miami, FL, recommends this laser treatment. The PinPointe Laser treatment has the highest cure rate on the market. Also, it has no side effects and no recovery period. As a result, you can go about your daily activities right after treatment. Also, it is not painful. To schedule a consultation for the PinPointe laser treatment with a podiatrist, give us a call at 1-(800) 672-0625 or visit our website for more information.