Your Guide to Treating Nail Fungus by an RN

Ciclopirox Penlac Nail Lacquer Reviews

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Ciclopirox lacquer has been shown to have a 30% success rate with Nail Fungus Infections.  It probably works as well as fluconazole pills. So if you’d rather put something on your nails than take pills, you may prefer ciclopirox, especially if your infection is mild.

But ciclopirox doesn’t seem to work as well as itraconazole pills or terbinafine pills. Ciclopirox is a chemical that you paint onto your infected nails like nail polish.

The brand name is Penlac Nail Lacquer. You can get it only with a prescription from your doctor.It may take a while before you see any results. Sometimes it takes as long as six months. If your infection is very bad, you may have to keep using ciclopirox for up to a year.

You may also need to see a health care professional every month or so to have the infected part of your nail removed.

Ciclopirox stops the fungus from making the chemicals it needs to grow. This may eventually get rid of the fungus, so your infection goes away. Then the dry or split skin and other symptoms of infection may be able to heal.

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15 Comments on “Ciclopirox Penlac Nail Lacquer Reviews

  1. After several months–Ciclopirox Penlac Nail Lacquer did not work for me. It was also very inconvenient to use, and sometimes nail felt uncomfortable after applying and noticed poor circulation in my feet and hands. Actually, it made some nails worse!

  2. I was trying for at least a year to remove my own infected nails by filing them every night, so when I started using Ciclopirox (Penlac), my nails were already filed very thin. This lacquer appears to soak down into the infected nail, with reapplications nightly for a week, then remove with alcohol, and remove as much of the nail as possible. I use the expensive sharp Made-in-Germany two-handled nail clippers and remove the nail by grabbing and pulling a layer off, being careful not to make it bleed. So far, I am very pleased and I am only on my second bottle, but again, I had already removed most of my nail before I started. I believe this is going to cure my condition, and it was not merely a “mild” case, but was very unsightly. Now my nails are beginning to look great. My prescription is for 2 refills, and I believe the 3rd bottle will be sufficient to completely cure my case.

  3. I had an extremely severe infection – much worse than in any of the pictures.
    I took a few months and alot of Penlac, but I started noticing some improvement.
    After about 3 years of obsessively using Penlac, along with a cicloporox cream,
    my nails appeared normal.

    It’s not a cure. The infection returned after I stopped using it. One side effect
    I noticed was that it made my nails turn black – the cure was almost worse than
    the disease!

  4. My three smallest nails on my right foot had the fungus all the way to the root. I started by removing the dead detached nail with a dremel and small sander bit on it. I’m pretty handy with tools so it wasn’t a problem though areas I was too vigorous I did bleed a little. After a day I started with penlac, very generous each night across the nail bed and extended about 1/8″ outside the nail area. After about 4 months and half way through the second bottle Penlac, I gave up. To my surprise the smallest toe grew a normal nail, pink and healthy from tip to root. The next toe in from the smallest had no change, still the fungus, the next toe seems to be cured but not grown out all the way yet. I’m getting some more penlac to try again but I really want to get the laser treatment (Noveon) when it meets FDA approval.

  5. I have a mild fungus case and tried the laser treatment with no success. I’m going back to trying penlac with a little more patience.

  6. i had a mild nail fungus due to pedicures,and penlac worked wonders.all u need is to have have patience

  7. I have been using the nail laquer, but quit using it several weeks ago. My nails look horrible and I cannot get the lacquer off! I have tried the alcohol but it does not remove the lacquer. It has bonded to the actual nail and is chipping from the bottom. Has anyone got any suggestions as to how to get the lacquer off?

  8. Acetone or nail polish remover was suggested by my doctor. I doesn’t take off all the laquer but softens it. Then a warm bath turns it into a gummy substance that pulls off like taffy with the help of a metal file. It seems to be a temporary fix for me but I’ll try it again with a lot more trimming. If I didn’t have the nails curling in at the sides, trimming would be easier.

  9. I have had this horrible problem for 3 years now. No sandles or open toed shoes. I would love just to be able to wear a pair of flip flops without someone starring at my ugly toenails. I am filing the nails every night and generously appying lacquer. Maybe that will work.

  10. for some reason i got the fungus on my big toe. two weeks before I noticed it
    it, i had gone to the salon to get a pedicure. I thinks it might have been at the
    gym’s shower when I picked it up. To my surprise after taking off my nail polish two weeks
    later when I was to get my next pedicure, i noticed it. I went to the doctor the
    next day to see what he could prescribe to cure it . He said either this lacque or
    a very expensive pill to take orally. I opted for the lacquer as he said it could work
    as it had worked on his wife. My case was very mild and after using it for 1 month, it
    dissapeared :0). now a year later, it has come back. However,this time it does not look as mild.
    I will try the lacquer again and hopefully it will work as summer is around the corner and i
    love to wear sandals. In the meantime, i will wear a bandaid over it with my
    lacquer underneath as no one has to know. it could just be a boo boo! keeping my
    fingers crossed…. ;0/

  11. Nail fungus is passed around, quite often, in nail salons. This treatment works for some, and you can also try Amoresse Thymol if it is not a fungus, but instead, a yeast or bacteria. Google the words and read the reviews.
    And remember that you can get rid of it, and getting it again is probably from the nail salon or public gym/pool bathroom (or old shoes you need to throw away)

  12. To completely stop re-occurrence, you absolutely must throw away all
    previously worn shoes and probably socks before you discontinue use
    of the product or you risk reinfection. The fungus is not easily
    removed from the inside of shoes. This is the most expensive part of
    the treatment that many physicians fail to tell you.

    Also, you should continue to use the treatment for 30 days past the
    last visible sign of infection or risk a relapse. Hope this helps!

  13. A friend of mine have used this treatment before and she told me that it is effective as long as you use it continuously. I, myself, have dreaded toenail fungus for years and I have tried using almost all the solutions available. I kept my nails trimmed and clean and I also wash my feet regularly. Yet, the fungal infection is still there. It’s very embarrassing to have discolored nails, especially for a clean freak like me. Unlike my friend though, I haven’t used this product. I took a different route and used zetaclear instead. Perhaps the effect of anti-fungal products vary from one person to another because zetaclear worked well for me. You just have to be really patient in addressing the problem because toenail fungus is difficult to treat.

  14. The problem with Ciclopirox 8% topical is the cost: $119 for 6.6 milliliters. Yes, that’s milliliters. That translates to about $69,000 per gallon (yes, that’s sixty-nine thousand!). You’re better off soaking your feet nightly in apple cider vinegar. It’s a lot cheaper and works just as well.

    A regular bottle of clear nail lacquer is $1.99 (for .45 ounces; 6.6 ml is 0.223 ounces)). Add enough of a fungicide to make it 8% of the solution. How much would that cost? If my doctor had told me how much it would cost I would not have gotten it.

    What a total ripoff.

  15. I drill my nails with a Dremel tool. Cleans the nails up for a couple of weeks. Some of my nails have actually been cured because of how deep I was able to get.

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ToenailFungusTreatments.com is written by Medical Professionals including Nurse Practitioners & Doctors to help educate the public to the various treatments options for Onychomycosis. Past Contributors/Authors: Brandy Widner MS RN / Susan Miller MS BSN RN / Michael Todd Sapko MD