I hereby acknowledge that you are not a doctor, or if you are you’re not my doctor, and fully accept all responsibility for deciding which advice to act upon and which not to.
I dropped a heavy book on my big toe a few weeks ago, and the nail has been slowly releasing ever since. It is still attached by a couple of millimeters on the side (nearest the next toe) but is completely loose across the other side and the cuticle.
There is fresh healthy nail growing at the cuticle.
I’ve mostly tried not to mess with it, just keeping neosporin on it, and under it as far as is comfortable, and using undecyclenic acid (to prevent fungus) at night. I’ve also been wrapping it with bandaids during the day to keep it tight to the toe so it doesn’t rip.
I have no idea what’s under there, because I don’t want to pull up on it. There may be a thin layer of nail still protecting the nail bed. I suspect this because there hasn’t been a huge amount of pain. It just throbs a bit after lots of walking.
I don’t have a car, and public transport here sucks, so I’ve been walking a lot, and that can’t be avoided. Naturally, I’m concerned about this getting worse and becoming super painful.
So, all you runners and fellow klutzes, what should I expect? Any thoughts as to whether I should encourage it to come off completely? (To avoid the risk of tearing?) Will it be as painful as I’m thinking? Runners lose theirs and keep going, right?
Any tips or tricks to keeping it comfortable and healthy?
I lost the nails on my big toes a few times from running. I just left them alone until they got really loose and then I lifted them up and cut them back with clippers. Just take it easy on them for a while and you shouldn’t experience much pain. It will grow back eventually but it may take a long time (mine always took many months to fully grow back but the nail bed forms a tough patch that acts as a proto-nail almost right away).
I’m terrible because when it happens to me, I can’t stop fussing with it. Once I know for sure the thing is going to come off, I start clipping away whatever is loose. I do put a bandage on to keep from snagging it on something.
I suspect that before long, it will basically fall off with very little pain, if any. In my case it took many months for the new one to grow to normal length in its place. And even then it always felt to me that new one seemed… i dunno… fake, for quite a while after that. After a year or two, it should pretty much be a regular nail again.
I have had this happen a few times. Once, when the nail had long since released from the nail bed, but still attached at the base, I went to move a pile of towels with my foot, and the nail snagged. Lifted up like the hood of a car. :eek:
Seems alarming, but there was virtually no pain by that point, just an uncomfortable tugging feeling. I called over my son to get a look, then clipped the whole thing off at once.
You can keep it trimmed, or just take care not to catch it on anything. The longer you wait, the more the new nail takes over, and the old nail becomes yesterday’s news and pain is near gone - it will eventually just fall off on it’s own. The human body is a strange and wonderful thing.
I would just chop it off before it snags on something.
Long distance runner here - I’ve lost more toenails than I can count. My advice is to not rip it off if you can help it, but clip away as much as you can to avoid snags and let the rest grow out. It will tend to ride forward as the new nail grows.
The “back” or trailing edge of the toenail goes under the meat of your cuticle much further than you would expect.
When it loosens a thin protective layer forms underneath. The replacement nail will push the thin protective layer out. And eventually you will be as before. It is a slow process. I believe mine took about ten months to return to normal.
Some twenty years ago I lost the nail on one of my big toes. It was not especially painful and it just grew back. However the new nail had a fungal infection which I still have not shaken. It never spread to the other toes and doesn’t really bother me much, but there it is. I have no idea if this is a common side effect of losing a toenail or just a coincidence, but you might want to treat your toe with an anti fungal cream.
It’s now nothing more than dead skin (nails are skin).
I smashed my left big toe about a year ago. once it was all but completely off, I just tugged a bit.
I re-grew just fine. Until I dropped a 4x4 in such a way as to cause a corner to hit dead center on it.
Repeating process.
Lift and look at nail bed - is it now covered by a dry, thin coating/shell? In your case, all that is holding it is (most likely) just friction - it grows from the cuticle - if that is no longer connected, it ain’t gonna grow no more - either trim it or just pull it off - the edge may work into the flesh and cause an infection.
It’s always the right big toe for me and always from smashing it or something.
One time I dropped a wine bottle on it. That time it fell off, grew in but didn’t attach properly, then fell off again and grew in fine. The most recent time was a few years ago when a Friesian I was grooming decided to step on me. That time it damaged the nail bed pretty badly and my toe nail is always ugly.
If the tissue around the nail are pussy or swollen this could be paronychia. Paronychia warrants a visit to your primary care Doc.
I wish there was a wound care nurse in this thread. Hydrogen peroxide is a poor antiseptic but a decent debriding agent. Peroxide is good for removing scabbing and detritus but avoiding infection is better accomplished by applying an antibiotic salve regularly.
I’d prefer you get seen by professionals. If professional attention isn’t going to happen I advise keeping everything sterile as much as possible, using antibiotic salves, and avoiding any further strains or insults as much as possible.
If you ever have a spreading of hot feeling skin, redness, or just any trouble situation spreading- you got to see you general practitioner soon or just have to go to an emergency department.
If you get seen by a real professional you’ll get sound advice about aftercare and when you ought to seek help if things worsen.
Hope your situation resolves without any of my cations being relevant.
Here’s a tip: Once the nail falls off exposing the nice soft and tender nail-bed, don’t allow a fire extinguisher to slowly tip over and fall square on that little hyper-sensitive half-square inch of your body.
I tore my 2nd toenail almost at the quick a few years ago. Hurt like a you know what. Since I was teaching dance at the time, I knew I couldn’t fool around with tearing it off/waiting, so I went to the nail salon down the street. They glued/acrylic patched/whatever it back together in 5 minutes and I was good as new. It held for about two months, but by that time the tear was almost at the end of my toe, so I just trimmed it then.
I’m not even sure which foot that was now, so that repair worked really well.
The big toenails usually go when I get a pair of new shoes. Then there is a period of several months before they fully grow back.
For the OP, it seems that no matter how many times they fall off, they seem to grow back straight and normal. I wouldn’t recommend yanking it off, but that’s pretty much what ends up happening with me because I prefer the smooth post-nail state to having the thing flapping up and down loosely.
Sometimes I call the kids over to watch the toenail peeling. The response is priceless.