Goldstadt brace: help with involuted and ingrown toenails

Nagelspangen als Korrekturhilfe bei eingewachsenen Zehennägeln blicken auf eine lange Geschichte zurück. Die HELLMUT RUCK GmbH war von Anfang an dabei, als diese Technik auch in Deutschland populär wurde. Mehr noch: Durch RUCK wurden Spangen zu „glänzenden“ Produkten professioneller Therapie. Die Goldstadtspange ist der Beweis, wie sich fußpflegerisches Wissen und technischer Erfindergeist perfekt verbinden lassen. Seit Jahren bewährt, wird die Goldstadtspange in der aktuellen Version als GOLDSTADT professional Spange zum Systembaukasten für die Nagelkorrektur mit vorgefertigten Elementen. Für Menschen mit schmerzhaften Fußnagelproblemen ist dies mit Sicherheit „Gold wert“.

If toenails curl inwards, pain is bound to stay. Usually, the big toes are affected, which wear the main load when walking and rolling. Common causes for ingrown toenails are shoes that are not ideally fitting or cutting the nails incorrectly. Also, innate characteristics, such as the shape of the nail bed, skin sensitivity, nail curvature, etc. come into question as triggers. Body weight and strain can also have an influence.

In the early stages, the lateral nail edges press into the nail wall and have a tendency to irritate the skin or chafe. Severe health problems occur if the edges cut into the nail folds at the front. Inflammation and suppuration can occur as a result.

How can a podiatrist help here? In mild cases, nail fold tamponades or sulci protectors are used in most cases. For advanced stages, various brace techniques offer the best prospects for a gentle correction. Unfortunately, in most cases, surgery (grafting) is still the standard treatment, often due to a lack of knowledge of the options available in podiatry. With the exception of highly inflammatory processes, surgery should be avoided as a matter of principle. Not only because of the painful healing process, but also because repeated ingrowth is then not prevented.

In the past, foot care professionals have proven to be especially resourceful and inventive. To help their patients, they invented methods to bring ingrown toenails back into shape. It can be traced back to the late 19th century how tools were devised to enable painless therapy. Highly early on, the idea was contacted to use lever and spring forces to relieve the nail edges. The spring technique was formed, which has been used in different variants to this day. The processing and adaptation of the nail correction braces requires fine mechanical skill, sound training and a lot of practice.

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A successful treatment with a brace uses a customised method for each individual case. The type of brace, frequency of check-ups and treatment period must be determined by the podiatrist. With you, consultation with a doctor is an important factor, especially in the case of stage 2-3 ingrown toenails that are inflamed. If wound treatment of the injured or inflamed skin is necessary, this is still exclusively a medical treatment area.

In 1990, RUCK worked with podiatrist Wolfgang Knörzer to develop a nail correction brace made of gold-plated stainless steel that could be customised. It received the name ‘Goldstadt brace’ as a reference to its place of origin, the jewellery and gold city of Pforzheim. The gold coating improves adhesion and protects against allergic reactions. Last but not least, the Goldstadt brace is also very popular because it looks like a small piece of jewellery on the nail.

The main benefits of the Goldstadt brace:

• extremely flat (0.1 mm), takes up hardly any space in the nail fold and is therefore especially comfortable to wear
• can be used universally as a total, half or adhesive brace
• verbesserte Klebeeigenschaften und anti-allergene und entzündungshemmende Wirkung durch Goldbeschichtung

With the processing of the narrow steel band, delicate and filigree working is required. Many users therefore wished for relief thanks to prefabricated brace elements. RUCK always has an open ear for customer requests and so a consistent further development of the Goldstadt brace was tackled. In 2015, the GOLDSTADT professional brace finally came onto the market.

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A customer request has become reality: the ready-made Goldstadt brace for every purpose. Three versions in five widths each offer the ideal brace for every toenail. Total and half braces are available in two material thicknesses (0.1 and 0.15 mm). The ends are already predefined, so no cutting is required. This ensures a continuous gold coating right up to the ends, which is important for the anti-inflammatory properties and makes the rounding process extremely painless.

The GOLDSTADT professional is not only visually a ‘well-rounded’ piece of equipment for the nail correction system, it also has a dual effect: it is both attractive and has a lasting corrective effect on the toenail.