Hi everyone! I have a question. Is it normal for this bit under my nails to grow up my nail? In second Pic, I have yet another nail split on the sidewall that I cut to try to avoid snags, but I can't cut it any lower because of that skin or whatever it is growing up the nail and it hurts to cut. Mine gets hard and I've tried piling it and pushing it down but it's so thick that it doesn't really budge. You can kinda see the thickness in the first pic. Is there anything I can do to discourage this growth or is this normal and I just have to deal with these?
by Moxxie249
11 Comments
Following cause I have the same problem.
I have these on 2 of my nails on my left hand! All my nails are the same length but my nail line is so much more shallow on the two with this, and my other nails have much longer free edge nail line. Interested to hear what the reason is as well!
This is your hyponychium. It is normal for it to grow longer, past the tip of your finger, if your nails are usually long. It happens on most of my nails. This, though, seems excessive. A quick Google tells me hyponychium overgrowth can be caused by anything from psoriasis to a fungal infection, but I don’t have any experience with it myself.
You could dab a little bit of salicylic acid on it to encourage it to recede.
I think this is normal if you have longer nails. I think it protects the nail and finger. I always just leave it alone
Yep this is your hyponychium and it’s normal for it to be longer like yours is, esp if you typically keep your nails on the longer side. You can try *very very gently* pushing it back every time after you shower, but stop if it hurts. You may be able to very gradually reduce the length a little. Don’t cut it though, it’s living tissue and that’s going to hurt a lot and probably bleed.
I make sure to oil mine regularly and that helps prevent them from getting too hard
Does it hurt to file it down? I have long hyponychiums on a couple nails and using a glass file doesn’t hurt.
Interesting, I have never seen it grow so long!
(Not a nail tech)I can only offer my experience: I know I’ve always tried to keep my nail beds symmetrical. When I push my cuticles back I also clean out from under my nails, with my nails, and end up lightly pushing it back, ideally into shape. As another suggested: stop when you encounter pain.
It does tend to get a bit longer when I keep my nails long; receding eventually whenever I keep them short.
Wishing you well on your nail journey!
If you plan to grow your nails long don’t push it back! It hurts and acts as a defense layer against breaks. I wish I never pushed mine back on my dominant hand before I found this out.
It iss completely normal and even beneficial for long nails, becayse it provides extra support for the extra length.
What i think you need to focus on solving is why your sidewalls are splitting and snagging so often, rather than the hyponychium. You should really never cut in your side walls at all, are you in the habit of filing your side walls in general? Overfiling your side walls can cause splits and snags.
I saw in another comment reply that your hair often snags your nails, are you wearing gloves when you wash your hair? That may help as well.