I have had a problem for some years now with one of my thumbnails. It is really gruesome and quite deformed and I actually thought that I had caused it by over buffing my nails and making it too thin and damaging the nail bed but then why only this one nail and not all the others I overbuffed? From time to time I google to see if I can find any photos of similar nails or info about how to fix it. Sometimes I use a filler in the dents and sometimes I’d glue a false nail on top of my nail if it looks really bad, and mostly I try to hide the thumb so no one asks what’s wrong with it, but the funny thing is that sometimes it seems to improve and then it gets worse again. At the moment, it’s worse, so last night I googled again to see if I could find any help and guess what! I have found the problem, other people with the same problem and a solution! It’s called “habit-tic deformity” and here are some photos of what it can look like:
http://www.dermnet.com/Habit-Tic-Deformity
My thumbnail can look a lot like some of those photos sometimes. At the moment it’s a cross between photo 14 and 19.
This patient has a habit-tic deformity, a relatively common nail disorder that is often confused with onychomycosis. It is caused by the conscious or unconscious rubbing and picking of the proximal nail fold and cuticle area. Habit-tic deformity is most often found on the thumb of the dominant hand, which is being rubbed by the index or middle finger of that same hand. Other fingers may become involved, especially during times of stress.
While habit-tic deformity is considered to be a compulsive disorder, and medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have some theoretic use, a much simpler approach with fewer side effects may be even more effective. The patient could apply tape over the mid-nail fold and cuticle area during waking hours. The tape serves as a constant reminder to the patient and an interruption to the habitual trauma. There is nothing that can be done to “repair” the already damaged nail plate, but the patient will see results in two to three weeks as the nail matrix quickly recovers and produces a normal nail. http://www.aafp.org/afp/981101ap/photoqz.html
lol not like me to have a compulsive disorder now is it!
I read another article http://www.dermatoblog.com/2010/12/24/instant-glue-for-habit-tic-deformity/ where the doctor recommends using superglue applied to the area
What Ring proposed is to place a type of instant glue (cyanoacrylate adhesive) at the proximal nail fold. Patients were instructed to apply it 1 to 2 times weekly to artificially imitate the cuticle function and avoid new trauma. After several months of use, on average the product was only used once a week, patients achieved a normalization of both thumbnails. http://www.dermatoblog.com/2010/12/24/instant-glue-for-habit-tic-deformity/
I bought two tubes of superglue this morning and took a photo of my nail in its current gruesome state so I can see if this works.
Here is the nail as it looks today:
Pretty unsightly I think, lots of deep indentations, flaking, splitting and the nail gets very thin at the end so it never grows very long. It usually ends up splitting or breaking. So I’m going to try this superglue “cure” and see what happens.
