The initial treatment for athlete’s foot comes in the form of antifungal medications which need to be applied to the feet. These generally include the following ingredients: ciclopirox (Loprox), clotrimazole (Lotrimin, Mycelex), econazole (Spectazole), terbinafine (Lamisil), ketoconazole (Nizoral), miconazole (Micatin), naftifine (Naftin), oxiconazole (Oxistat), sulconazole (Exelderm), , terconazole (Terazol), and tolnaftate (Desenex, Tinactin). The treatment may take many weeks. Sometimes, topical antifungal drugs may relieve the symptoms, but the infection might keep coming back or take a lot longer to go away.
If the aforementioned doesn’t work, the doctor will prescribe medications by mouth which may come with side effects, but also a higher success rate. These include griseofulvin (Fulvicin, Grifulvin, Grisactin), itraconazole (Sporanox) and terbinafine (Lamisil).