I had a young lady come in this morning with a complaint of pain on the bottom of her right second toe for 4 days.  She reported a small callus on the bottom of the toe that had just started and was painful when running.

Physical exam revealed a 2x3mm callus.  It looked like this:

I debrided (scraped) the callus and was surprised to find a 3mm hair in there surrounded by a small amount of pus.

She owns a hair salon and works in flip-flops sometimes.  A small piece of human hair had entered a pore in her toe and caused an infection.

I removed the hair, drained the pus and applied topical Gentamicin antibiotic cream.  She’s going to live…