Onychomycosis:

It is often abbreviated to OK, or called simply a fungal infection of the toenail (fingernail).

Other names and synonyms are:

DLSO - distral lateral subungual onychomycosis

EO - endonyx onychomycosis

PSO - proximal sugungual...

• Dermatophytes (most common: Tricophyton Rubum)
• Yeast (Candida Albicans)
• Non-dermatophye molds

The first one, dermatophytes, is the culprit behind 95% of all finger and toe nail fungus infections which is why most treatment is focusing on this type of infection.

Finally sometimes the form of fungal infection created by Candida Albicans can be called candidal onychomycosis.

Dermatophytes - Tricophyton Rubum et al

The spreading in later years of nail fungus infections is mainly due to the dermatophytes - and of these, the main source of infection is the tricophyton rubum. There has been a large invasion of these funghi going from from south eastern Asia and western Africa towards northern America and Europe.

The Tricophyton Rubum, or rather the nail fungus infection itself, whichever the source, can affect people of all races, men and women. It does however tend to infect men more often, especially middleaged men. Children are very rarely affected.

Although the tricophyton rubum is the most common of the dermatophytes causing fingernail fungus infections, there are others. Tricophytum mentagrophytes is the second most common source of fungal nail infections from the dermatophyte group.

Candida Albicans

The one exception is that the candidal onychomycosis tend to infect women more often than men (see info on candida cleanses here).

As with the dermatophytes, there is more than one type of Candida, the Candida Parapsilosis is the second most common yeast causing toe nail fungus infections.

Nail fungus symptoms

In many cases, a fungal infection has no symptoms and can merely be seen as a cosmetic change in the nail strucure or surface - often with discoloring, or surface getting rough.

Onycholysis is when the nail comes loose from the nail bed, this is often a rather late stage in a fingernail fungus infection (or toenail).

Before that stage, you may notice that the nail gets thicker, the presence of a smelly mess underneath the toenail (fingernail). The nail is often very eroded, it may be frail and crumble easily. The toe nail may also split.

Symptoms of tonail fungus are very similar whether the condition is caused by dermatophytes or yeast (Candida) or even molds (rather unusual). The actual nail fungus treatment varies depending on the cause so it is important to get the diagnosis right. Growing a culture from the infected nail is the only way of dertermining with any certainty which of the different causes of nail fungus it is.