Nail fungus are amongst the commonest infections that affect then nails on the hands (and perhaps even more commonly the nails on top of toes on the feet). Unfortunately, it is quite easy to confuse nail fungus with other infections (and other physiological illnesses) that manifest in a similar manner; and hence end up trying to treat the wrong thing, naturally leading to poor treatment outcomes.

So just how exactly does one know whether what they are afflicted of is indeed nail fungus?

One of the commonest symptoms of nail fungus is the discoloration of the affected nails. Here, we tend to see the affected nail turning from its ordinary color and typically tending towards yellow or black (though there are rare types of fungus infections where the afflicted nail has the tendency to turn white). Of course, this particular manifestation might not conclusively qualify what you happen to be suffering from to be termed as nail fungus, because a variety of other infections also manifest through the discoloration of hand nails and foot toes where the color tends towards black or yellow.

Another common symptom of nail-fungus is the swelling of the afflicted nails (that is, the nail rather than the underlying finger or toe digit). Nails on the human body are typically quite thin layers, and when they are noted to have (noticeably) thickened; one might have a reason to suspect that they could be suffering from a nail fungus infection; especially where the thickening of the nail happens to be accompanied by another symptom of nail fungus such as the discoloration (towards yellow or black) mentioned earlier. As the infection progresses – if it is unchecked, that is, then we are likely to see the thickness of the affected nail being even further accentuated by the accumulation of debris underneath, this debris being the very type that is characteristic of all fungal infections. All this (thickening and subsequent accumulation of debris) associated with nail-fungus has the ultimate effect of making the afflicted nails extremely hard to trim, with attempts to cut them often resulting in outright damage to the nail-cutters employed in cutting them.

The nails afflicted of fungus, in addition to get discolored and thickening have a tendency to start getting scaly and later becoming inflamed, if the condition goes unchecked.

As the fungus infection progress - that is, if it goes unchecked - its manifestation keeps on changing. From a stage where nail fungus is characterized by discoloration, thickening and possible inflammation of the afflicted nails, we are likely to get point where the afflicted nail starting turning crumby and brittle 'like a bottle.' This, being a very advanced stage of nail fungus infection, could be followed by the situation where the afflicted nail simply falls off, having been completely 'wasted' by the fungus. Whereas the previous stages of the nail fungus infection were only marginally uncomfortable (by way of interfering with the appearance of the nails), this advanced stage of the infection could turn out to be actually a painful stage – meaning that nail-fungus is best treated as soon as it is noticed.