Later this month I will be celebrating my 30 year anniversary of living with type 1 diabetes. As that number gets bigger, the more important it is for me to pay attention to the little things. As that number gets bigger, the more important it is for me to be careful about routine personal hygiene things, like trimming my toenails.In almost 30 years, I’ve heard a lot of general talk about how to trim my toenails, but because I’m young, and in pretty good health, the subject was always sort of skimmed over. They always say “trim straight across”, and that’s about it!
Maybe I’m over-complicating things, but a toe’s end is roundish. If I trim my nails straight across, won’t that leave sharp edgy corners on them? Besides, how do you trim straight across when all of the nail clippers I’ve every used are curved? There are probably some special, straight across, toenail clippers that I’ve never known existed.
Have you ever been taught how to safely trim your toenails? If so, who taught you? Your endo? A toenail trimming specialist? Am I the only one who missed the lesson?
It would be a real bummer to get a threatening infection by some stupid self-inflicted toenail trimming accident. Or by doing something that is a “no-no” without knowing it is a “no-no”.