Pedicure Nightmare

I had a friend who had her toenails infected once by what she said was a pedicure gone wrong and she then refused to go back to ever get another pedicure. I always shook my head at her thinking she was nuts and that her infection couldn't have possibly been from a pedicure.

Now I have my own nightmare pedicure story to tell. Complete with pictures. And after you hear it and see the accompanying pictures, maybe you will share this post with others as a warning to be very careful when getting your feet done. Because it involves second-degree burns to my ankle.

Shall I just get straight to the point and start with a photo? This is a week AFTER the injury happened.

Here's the story. OK, so you all know I went to Vegas. The night before, I went to get a pedicure. I ALWAYS go to the same place, and they always do a GREAT job. It's a reputable place and it's always packed. I always get the treatment that includes callous remover, where they put a solution onto the heels of your feet and then place plastic bags over your feet for like five minutes to soften the heels. Then they take the bags off your feet and start scraping with a cheese grater. Not REALLY a cheese grater, but it looks like one -- come on, those of you who have had your callouses removed, you know what I'm talking about.

So things were moving along fine until I felt the teeniest bit of a sting on my left ankle. I thought, "Hmm, maybe when I shaved this afternoon, I nicked the back of my ankle." No real biggie, and I didn't say anything. She continued with the treatment, removed the baggies, and everything seemed fine, just still a bit of stinging, nothing unbearable.

The sting continued throughout the pedicure and it felt a little like an itch and by the time it was done it had gotten sufficiently worse. My girl had gotten up and I told the women working next to me that my ankle was stinging and asked her to find my girl. When she came back, she was going to put alcohol on my ankle. Why? I have no idea. We then decided maybe aloe would be a better idea. So we soothed it with aloe and I paid and left.

An hour later, the stinging persisted and I looked at my ankle. The skin had turned brown and the area affected was the size of a tea bag. I went back to the salon and told one of the managers and kind of asked for a refund and explained that they need to be aware how dangerous the solution can be. He gave me a gift card to come back for a free pedi and was very nice. As I said, I go in there fairly often -- maybe once every three months, and it's a reputable place, always busy, so I knew they wouldn't ignore me.

The next day I went to Vegas. Thank goodness I packed band-aids and neosporin. Thank goodness I drank a lot through the pain. I don't know how I walked and danced as much as I did that whole weekend. When I got back, I went to the doctor where she told me I had a second degree burn. Fortunately it was not infected.

She gave me some topical cream called silvadene and I've been using that twice daily and keeping it covered. It's still a horrible mess, and still painful and I can't have it in the sun for a year, and it will probably scar. Fortunately, it's not an area where I'll have my skin in the sun.

I took a letter from my doctor, my receipts for my co-pay and prescription and supplies, copies of these photos all back to the nail salon to make sure they will be paying me back for all of this, which will come out to be around $70. The owners are away for Thanksgiving, but again, the manager was very nice and he assured me they will get back to me on this. I WILL be getting my money back on this one.

The worst part though ... there's no way I'm going to be able to run the AZ half marathon now! Drat.

This is what the injury looks like 10 days later, as it's healing:

Just wanted to get the word out, so please, share this with anyone, your nail salon, wherever... and if you are ever in a position where you think something is going wrong don't sit there because you don't want to make SOMEONE ELSE feel uncomfortable. This is YOUR body they are dealing with. They screwed up my ankle badly. It hurts every day, and looks disgusting, and if I would have spoken up right away when the stinging started, maybe this wouldn't have been so bad.

So, take this free lesson, as my Dad would call it, and learn from it.

PS... if you are the GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the Fall Fab Book Giveaway, you need to contact me! You've won a boat-load of awesome books!