By Had the toe nails on both big toes removed this morning.
The toe on my left foot was trouble-free. Applied the anaesthetic, tourniqueted the toe, removed the nail; felt some tugging but the anaesthetic did it's job, applied the phenol, and then dressed the wound.
The toe on my right foot wasn't trouble-free. After applying the anaesthetic I could still feel some sharpness when they tested the toe so they had to apply a second injection. Whilst removing the nail it wouldn't stop bleeding; from 2 separate locations and they ended up using a second tourniquet and applied phenol directly to the bleed to try and cauterize it. After they got the bleeding stopped it was relatively plain sailing. There's still some bleeding visible through all the gauze and dressing they used on the right toe but it's manageable.
I've gotta go back tomorrow afternoon to get the dressing changed and they'll also show me how to change and apply the new dressings myself.
Should usually take between 8-12 weeks to heal and I'm pretty amazed that there's not much pain there at the moment. I'd heard horror stories of how painful it can be, but, so far I've been relatively pain-free.
Changed the dressing myself today. Went okay and the toes look ok.