Which way?

Luckily I ripped my toenail's arms off, so he can't pull this shit.

how do I perform this
- Do not rip a toenail's arms off. Only a paid professional toenail armripper should perform the procedure.
- OP might be talking about a procedure where a podiatrist or dermatologist kills the mis-growing edges of the nail root. The remaining root grows a narrower nail, but hopefully a straighter one. Sometimes the process doesn't work the first time (hard to judge how much cell-kill stuff will get just the edges and not damage the middle) and has to be repeated.
- If you hit it hard enough you will lose the toenail. Normally this does also break and or fracture the digit.

Why does this even happen?

this stopped happening to me when i heard i shouldn't round the edges of the nail when cutting them
- That's so counter intuitive. Like, the things at the sides are those that hurt you. But as long as you let them do their thing it's fine.
- Okay I'm going to try that
- You see I have heard this multiple times and read it online too, nonetheless I had to ask my pedicurist to round my toenails, otherwise by next day it's in my flesh and hurts.
- I try to even clip mine into a bit of a V (but very subtle; ~10°). Had a friend teach me that in college. It feels weird for a day or two but I haven't had ingrown nails since.
- You're lucky, I've never done that and still get them.
- For me, the only thing that really fixed it was surgery :/
For me it's cutting the big toenail too short. I cut it straight across on the inside edge. Leaving about 1/8-1/4 inch of white. Toe builds a callous under it that never goes away. If i cut it short it hurts for a month.
Shoes.
I had a lot of trouble with this and in my case I just have weirdly curved nails. Viewed from the front my big toe nails are basically half-circles, so any pressure at all pushes them edge first into my toe.
Any damage to the nail can cause it to do this. I broke my toe and after it healed I started having this problem, probably because the nail bed got disrupted when the toe got broken.
shoes and stuff. but maybe festering ingrown toenails just killed a certain percent of the population until modern times. how did prehistoric humans trim their toenails anyway? did they chew it off?
- Like most claws from animals they'd probably just wear down naturally.

I've had those and it sucks. Had to go to a doctor.

While getting it taken taken care of by a doctor is the more prudent option, the cotton trick can temporarily help in the meantime.

You pull a small strip of cotton about 2.5cm long from a cotton ball and stuff it under your nail, as if you were flossing your nail, with the ends of the cotton acting as a sort of cushion and softening the edges of the nail. You would then use a bandaid to keep it in place for the day. (also, you should use some antibiotic ointment before stuffing in the cotton if you have any broken/torn skin)

Again, it's only a temporary solution, but it really does help with the pain.

This also helps if you have short nails, and just want to make sure it doesn't grow in before the nail gets longer again. Can raise the nail up enough that it will grow out forward without cutting in, then you can make sure you clip it properly so it isn't rounded at the edges, and it can sometimes stop it from growing in later.

Thanks, I hate it.

my fingers do this all the freaking time and i hate it :(

Never had this problem. I have that annoying little nail splitting out from my little toe. Gets snagged on socks all the time.

Same, I've never had this happen either. I only used to get the splitting in my hands but it hasn't happened in a long while and I suspect it was because of the cold.
- I just looked it up. We're freaks with a 6th nail! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_nail_of_the_fifth_toe

To anyone who gets this: ~~do not let the podiatrist convince you to do the partial removal~~. Ask your podiatrist if a full nail avulsion could be preferable to a partial avulsion if minimizing chance of reoccurence is the most important factor to you. Ie, removing a tiny strip from one or both sides of the nail. It is HIGHLY likely it will get bad again. Have them do a full phenol cauterization and remove the entire nail. You dont need it, and you'll be better off without it. However, I'm no doctor.

gives medical advice explicitly in opposition to a hypothetical doctor
says they're not qualified to give medical advice because they're not a doctor
leaves
Your personal experiences with procedures are valid, fam, you can just say it didn't do you or a friend any good and you wish you'd done something else instead.
- Personally I love it when people who are not my doctor offer me specific, actionable medical advice. Especially so when it entails surgery to permanently remove my body parts
- Fair, edited to bring the final choice back to podiatrist.
- i went to a surgeon with mine, he just cut stuff out. didnt even mention the existence of cauterization. so y'know, depends on the doctor you find.
  i suffered along for a while more until i found out about it. had to go to a private clinic and pay a lot of money for it, of course, but so far it seems to have worked. we'll see. i'll consider it fixed if i go a whole year without problems. i'm at 6ish months atm.
Also anecodtal: I had the procedure you're describing and it worked for me. Ignoring your podiatrist is bad advice
- I also had that procedure where the doctor only removes the affected part of the toenail. That was over a decade ago and I've never had the issue reoccur; and I still have my toenail.
- I've also had the same procedure before, three times (on different parts of nails, obviously) and it's worked every time.
Oh, if you add phenol the nail won't grow out again?
- Yeah the science is above my head but I believe usually after they rip out the nail (be it whole nail or a strip), they will apply a cotton ball of phenol to the bed and that is supposed to stop the nail from coming back. It failed to do so 3 times in my case, albeit on two different toes.
On the flip side, I had partial nail removal on two toes each side, and haven't had any issues in 20 years. Procedure was quick, mostly painless, and the relief was immediate. I was playing soccer 3 days later.
If you want to ask about a full removal, go for it, but be open to professional advice.
you can probably get away with having a strip cut out, as long as they cauterize the matrix. just cutting a strip out is useless, it'll grow back exactly the same.
alternatively, just reach in there with a pokey thing and pull that fucking nail out. about once every month or two. forever. yum. ask me how i know.