About three weeks ago when my husband got home from work (wearing shoes) I rushed into his arms (in bare feet) and stubbed the second toe of my right foot on the toe of his left shoe. The toenail got pulled up from its bed and bled and hurt for several days. This morning the nail finally fell off completely.
Which leads to my question: it’s the longest toe on my foot and now is just squishy and unprotected. What should I do, if anything, to protect it for the next couple of months until the nail grows back? Wear close-toed shoes all summer?
Also, am I at any particular risk of contracting fungus under the new nail as it grows?
I lost a thumbnail when I was a kid, and also the nail from my smallest toe when I was 25. Your toe should be fine without any special protective measures while the nail grows back.
I got a little queasy reading the OP. I did exactly the same thing, except I managed to stub my toenail against the bottom of my own other sandal.
If your nailbed is raw, you might want to bandage it until it heals a bit. If not, you should be fine leaving it uncovered. In fact, it hurts less to keep it in the open air. My toe developed kind of a thin shell over the nailbed before the actual new toenail grew in (t took forever). I’d venture to guess you’re less likely to grow fungus if you don’t keep it warm, moist, and dark, but that’s just conjecture.
I’ve had toenails completely removed as a podiatrist’s attempt to combat ingrown nails. One piece of advice I learned that summer: it’ll regrow quicker if you stay out of swimming pools. The exposed bed also attracts tiny flies after swimming.
I rang a medium-fastball off my big toe a few years back. It was two weeks before I noticed my nail was dark and the toe felt weird. I went to trim it and as the blade poked underneath, it vented a huge amount of fluid. The nail came off the next day and finally grew back, but it took probably four months before the first normal trimming. Then I did it again (smashed the toe under a heavy crate), and worked the nail off as soon as I realized it was no longer attached. It grew back fine. Once the exposed area hardened, it wasn’t particularly sensitive or inflamed, just ugggly.
I’m a runner, and every time I get a new pair of shoes I lose my big toenails. I posted photos here once, but I’ll spare folks the disgustingness for now.
They have fallen off seven or eight times so far, and then grown back exactly like they were before. Indeed, right now I don’t have a left big toenail and the right one is just a sliver, but they will be back, just like always.
I can report the same as the others. I have lost my big toenails a couple of times from running without any lasting damage. The nail bed hardens over a week or two and then you stop noticing it. There are two things that I learned from those experiences that I didn’t know before however:
Big toenails take a long time to grow back fully. Mine took at least 6 months to be semi-normal and probably closer to a year before they were back like they were before. I suspect the smaller ones grow in faster but it will still probably take a months at least for it to come back fully
I always thought lost nails would grow in from the back to the front because they seem to grow that way when you have intact ones and have to trim your nails. It turns out it doesn’t work that way when you lose them. The nail bed just gets thicker and thicker until they turn into nails again all over at roughly the same rate.
Don’t worry about it though. Losing a nail doesn’t usually cause any permanent damage as long as the finger or nail bed wasn’t badly crushed or broken during the injury.
Uh, no. Nails grow from the cuticle region outwards. If the bed is tough and ripply you might not notice the smoother surface of the nail growing across it, tightly embedded at the leading edge. I was kind of fascinated by the slow march of perfection across the rougher area, and it was a minor delight when the edge came free and I could start trimming it even.
I had had fungus under my great toe nail on my right foot for a few years when I ripped the toenail off accidentally when I was picking up my vacuum cleaner. After I got the bleeding stopped, I used clotrimazole 1% cream on the nail bed twice a day. The nail grew in without fungus, which took about 6 months. YMMV.
It will be okay, I dropped a an end table on my big toe, nail fell off but grew back though thicker than its counterpart. I walked 16 miles while training for another event and the nail on the second toe, both feet came off and grew back in good order.
We might be referring to the same result even though you phrased it differently. All I know is that my beds got thicker quickly at every point and kept getting thicker as the nail grew back to normal. It took a long time to get back to a regular, smooth nail again but it didn’t take very long (maybe a week or two) at all until the whole thing was perfectly functional because you end up with hardened surface where the nail once was and it grows thicker and harder every day. I am not sure exactly what it means when you say that the nail only grows from the cuticle region out. That is what I always heard but it didn’t work out the way I expected mainly because I had always heard that too (but I may have misinterpreted it). Instead, you get a sort of proto-nail that forms quickly and then gets smoother and thicker over time.
Referencing the comments above, it should not be surprising that losing a few of mine was no big deal. On a Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim hike I lost 4 heading down the steep trail. It’s been about 6 months and they’re almost back.
[quote=Shagnasty;16352404Instead, you get a sort of proto-nail that forms quickly and then gets smoother and thicker over time.[/quote]
Yes, the nail bed turns quite tough, like a glossy callus. But the nail slowly grows out over that. It might be hard to tell the difference if your “fake nail” is smooth and hard enough.
