healthy nails

Whether there is abnormal damage/discoloration of the nail plate, whether there is ongoing inflammation around the nails, whether the nail growth rate is stable - this is the basic judgment logic recognized by dermatology clinics and senior nail practitioners. Don’t be led astray by the messy health posts.

Last week, I was doing preparatory work for a regular customer. When she reached out, she clenched her fists and was too embarrassed to let go. She said that she only had two crescents on her thumbs. She saw a short video saying that "the blood and qi will be lost soon," and she was so frightened that she drank brown sugar water for half a month. There were several white spots on her nails, which made her even more panicked. I patted my own hand for her at that time. Only one of my ten fingers has a crescent on my thumb. I have had manicures for almost 7 years, and there are no problems with my annual physical examination. I turned around to find Dr. Chen, a dermatologist whom I knew well, for confirmation. People say that lunula are nails that are not completely keratinized. The amount depends on the location of the nail matrix, and heredity accounts for 80%. Unless you originally had lunula on all ten fingers, and suddenly only one or two are left within half a month, then you need to have your thyroid checked. Otherwise, you are born with less, and drinking brown sugar water will be useless.

There are actually two different opinions about the small white spots on the nails: the older generation of pediatricians will regard them as one of the auxiliary judgments of parasitic infection. After all, in the past, poor sanitary conditions made it easy for children to get eggs. Indeed, many children infected with roundworms will have white spots on their nails.； But the latest clinical consensus is that more than 90% of white spots are caused by minor trauma to the nail matrix. For example, you knocked your fingertips while carrying express delivery two weeks ago, polished your nails too hard when doing a manicure, or even pinched them when closing the door without taking it seriously. White spots can appear, and they will be over when they are slowly grown out with the nails. It is not a calcium deficiency or worms at all. Unless you also have inexplicable stomachaches and light spots on your face at the same time, then it is not too late to go for a stool test. Don't buy anti-worm medicine blindly.

Many people think that nails are just the nail plate. In fact, the condition of the periungual is the core that affects nail health. Two years ago, I met a customer who always liked to tear off barbs, and her fingertips were bloody. She didn't take it seriously. She said that just putting a band-aid on it would be fine. But when she went for a manicure, her entire index finger was swollen like a small carrot and hurt when she pressed it. I rushed her to the hospital. It was found that the paronychia had suppurated. In the end, she had incision and drainage. She didn't dare to touch her manicure for almost three months, and even holding a pen hurt. Really, don’t tear the barbs, just use nail clippers to cut them off at the root. If the periungual area is red, swollen and painful, apply some povidone iodine. Don’t force it. If the paronychia is serious, you really need to remove the nail. It will hurt so much that you will doubt your life.

There is a lot of quarrel now about whether manicure will hurt nails: health bloggers say that nail polish contains formaldehyde phthalates, which can cause cancer and make you infertile if done for a long time.； Manicurists who say that as long as you use qualified products will not hurt your nails are all nonsense. ； Dr. Chen's statement is relatively neutral: If a regular brand of nail polish complies with national safety standards, the harmful content is within the safety threshold, and there will be no health problems at all if used normally. What really damages the nail is the wrong operation: for example, polishing the nail surface until it turns white and painful, cutting dead skin until it bleeds, and hard scratching when removing nail polish. These operations are more than ten times more harmful to the nail surface than nail polish. My own experience is that before every manicure, apply a layer of reinforcement primer. When polishing, just throw off the oil layer on the nail surface. Don't polish it to death. Use a nail remover bag for 10 minutes and gently push it off. Leave a window period of one to two weeks for the nails every two times. I have done manicure for 7 years, and now my nails can grow about 1 mm in half a month. They are also hard enough and have never been so thin that they break at the touch of a touch.

In fact, you really don’t need to think of your nails as a “magnifying glass for your health.” Vertical lines mean bad liver and horizontal lines mean bad kidneys. These are all rumors without scientific basis. If there is really a problem, such as nails suddenly turning black, thickening, and uneven, or not growing any longer for half a year, it is much more effective to go directly to the hospital to see a dermatologist than to scare yourself by looking at your phone for a long time. If you avoid tearing out hangnails, biting your nails, picking at nail polish, eating well and staying up late at night, your nails will naturally be healthy.