sorry i'm not 100% sure if this type of post is allowed here, but i was wondering what i can do to fix my nails? the nails had separated from my nailbed because i always used cuticle sticks to get rid of dirt underneath my nails. i didn't realize it was harmful at the time until my free edge started to move more and more back. the free edge/white part had taken up nearly half my nail on some nails. i looked up what caused this and found out about my mistake. i read that you need to cut off all of the separated nail and wait for it to grow back to normal, so i cut it all, but it's been about 2 weeks and it seems as if the white part is simply growing back, meaning it didn't fix anything.
has anyone else experienced this or knows how to fix it?
TL;DR:
nails have separated from nailbed, need advice on how to get them back to normal because cutting off all the separated parts doesnt seem to help
by killmeimoffthemeds
16 Comments
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products used: essie apricot nail & cuticle oil
Keep them well oiled, and let them grow out.
A new white area will always form, because it’ll always lift at the edge. So, now that you’ve cut away the bulk, I’d stop cutting the white away.
A jojoba based oil is your best bet.
Do your best to be patient. It takes a long time to grow nails back out, and you likely won’t see a noticeable difference for a while. Keep them oiled with an oil that has Jojoba in it in the meantime. And get a nail brush instead of using a cuticle stick.
It may help you to see progress if you keep taking photos on a schedule. Maybe every Tuesday, so you can compare. I bet there has been some progress already that you just can’t see because you look at them every day.
It can take time for your nails to recover. If you haven’t already seen them, The Salon Life on YouTube has excellent tutorials on how to treat nail separation. Just search “the salon life onycholysis”.
It will grow back the pink part but very very slowly. The most outside edge will be white usually because nails grow from under the cuticle area and slowly get longer to the fingertip area. Check out r/calmhands i saw hands with worse nails healing up to healthy hands
I dig at the sides of my nails. So I have lifting on the sides. It’s an insanely slow process. I’ve noticed from pics like 8 years ago, that my nails have attached and improved a lot since then, but there are still free edges on the sides of some nails. It’s a hard habit for me to break.
Just like people who chew their nails and shrink the nail bed size that way, the nail bed needs years to recover after this kind of damage. All the advice here is solid, just be very very patient. It took about a decade for my bitten nails to go back to “normal” and they’re still pretty small nail beds, there’s still a lot of skin past where my free edge starts. You got this!
It takes a long time for your nails to reattach to the nail beds, be patient! There’s a lot of great advice in this thread, but I also wanted to mention that when your hyponichium (like cuticle tissue but under the free edge) is growing back it can feel really weird, like there’s something under your nail, and you have to resist the urge to “clean” under your nails.
You need to, at a minimum, wait for that damaged part to grow out. As your nail grows, that damage will shift further and further up, assuming you don’t do any new damage.
If the damage is more serious, your nail bed needs time to repair – so it might take longer. 2 weeks really isn’t long enough to see any sort of difference.
just to add that when comments here say it will take a long time, it means a really long time. it will probably take several years to totally grow back.
just oil them regularly and be as gentle as possible. when the nails grow to a normal level, you could paint them a solid colour so that the nail beds are not visible, and it keeps you from fussing with them.
If you’re on instagram, @lovefreshpaint has a highlight called onycholysis that shows progress and explains how to grow them out properly. Wishing you the best
Kerasal Multi-Purpose Nail Repair (for damaged nails) would be a lot better to use than regular oil. It looks like you have onycholysis. Keep trimming the white tips off as they grow out. Keep them as short as possible but do not dig deep to trim
be patient, don’t touch them except for applying nail oil. just let them do their thing. i know it can be hard to wait for something to fix over time cause it feels like you need to do something but in this case it really is just a matter of letting them do their thing!
Stop digging under your nails. Overtime, the nail bed and the nail plate will begin to the reattached to where it once was.
There’s a lot of conflicting info, yeah. I had nails once that were bitten halfway down the bed. Growing them out meant there was no new attachment and shit gets stuck under them like that. I didn’t use sticks (it removes the new sticky growth trying to form), I would use water shot under and soft bristled toothbrushes instead. Took like 6 months+ for the nailbeds to form properly.
One thing I’ve noticed is that long nails have very prominent nailbeds compared to shortnails. I think it’s because the brunt of force is taken by the nail tip vs the brunt of force being taken by the fingertip in short nails, tugging the nailbed around.
There’s no reason you can’t do your nails. But that white part is going to take a long time to grow out. Just paint them so you don’t see it and clean anything stuck under them very very gently.