When I was younger my father took me skiing in Colorado every year.  One year he wore snow boots that were too small for him, and he developed ingrown toenails.  He had to have some procedures on his toes, and his toenails on his big toes never looked the same.  He also said it was extremely painful.  So basically I grew up with a fear of ingrown toenails.  Ever since, I’ve always been careful about my shoe sizes and about trimming my toenails.  But even with this fear and preventative efforts, I’ve had a couple times where I’ve had to get the nail tools and dig out the side of my big toenail.  If any of you have had to do that, you know it’s not fun.     The other morning I woke up about 5:30 to take my dogs out.   As I started to walk I felt the worst ingrown toenail pain I have ever felt.   The pain was shooting all through my toe.   This made no sense because I hadn’t done anything recently to cause it, but there it was.   It was so bad that my first fear was that my typical tech