Antibiotics and a sore toe

So, I've never had an ingrown toenail before (always thought that was an old person thing), and my doctor tells me she's "not sure" if what I have is an ingrown toenail. It might just be an infected cuticle.

Whatever. It feels like a large stick pin is being shoved into it most of the time, and if I bump it at all, it feels closer to a carving knife.

"Oh, but I've seen much worse."

Great, but I'm not worried about all the ingrown toenails of the world, just mine.

This is my second go round. I went once to the walk-in clinic in November, the harried nurse practitioner gave me some antibiotics and I went home.

Two weeks later, it was slightly better. Then got worse. I kept hoping it would clear up, but no.

Went to my own doctor last week, and she prescribed more anti-biotics, and told me to soak my toe every night. Okay.

Now, these are the antibiotics from hell. They are huge for one thing. The kind that go down only halfway, and then the gel covering starts dissolving in the middle of your throat. I can live with that. Next, I have to take them 4 times a day. Sounds easy enough, but I teach pretty much straight through; I'm always forgetting the one at lunchtime.

I shouldn't say lunch time, because that's when I eat. The worst thing about trying to take these pills is that they are to be taken on an empty stomach. "One hour before or three hours after eating."

Does anyone know how hard that is? I put a pill and a glass of water next to my bedside each night so that the moment I wake up, I can take it. Then, I can actually eat breakfast before I go to work. The past two days I have forgotten to take my 11 am pill, because I'm, uh... teaching. Then it's lunchtime, and I remember, but if I eat my lunch, I still can't take the pill until 3 pm. If I take the pill, I can't eat until 1 pm, but I'm... oh yeah... teaching then. Then we have the dinnertime pill. This one isn't so hard. I usually eat late, so I just have to remember to take the darn pill when I get home from work. But... that last pill? I usually end up eating around 8 pm. Problem is that I have to wait until 11 pm to take it. If you know me, that's really late in my book for going to bed.


A little thing to complain about, I know... but you'd think they'd figure out an easier way to take these little suckers. Why even use this when there's so many other ones out there? I mean, we've got great scientists coming up with new medicine all the time...

And my foot? Well it's been 6 days and my big toe is still red and angry and sore.

I really don't want to go back to the doctor again.