After an unfortunate incident involving my friend’s umbrella on a Boston subway a couple of weeks back, I broke off part of the nail on my right thumb. There’s this deep gap right above the cuticle missing, with only a thin layer of nail beneath. The nail is still on, and it’s growing out again. I put some antiseptic stuff on it and covered it with a coat of clear polish.
It doesn’t hurt, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Just wait for the nail to grow out all the way? It’ll sure look funny when it gets to the tip and I have this half-moon shaped thumbnail.
If the cosmetic aspect bothers you, you could go get a acryllic nail kit-- the kind which women use to apply fake nails.’
There will be a powder and an activating liquid. When you mix the two together, it makes a thick gell. Fill in the hole, allow it to dry, then file smooth. Use nail polish to finish it off, either colored or clear.
Only do this, though, if the skin below is not broken or infected.
I question whether this is safe, even if there are no obvious skin breaks. I strongly suggest the OP call her family doctor and ask for a call-back. If there is more to it than I suppose, a nurse or PA from the doctor’s office would talk with the doctor before returning the call. If it’s less hazardous than I think, they’ll just say so. But in any case, hands are always visible and noticed. I’d rather have a funny looking thumb noticed for the two or three weeks it’ll probably take to grow back out than have the nail bed permanently damaged by some toxic component of the acrylics.
Hmm - Working in a kitchen once I chopped off - I do mean off - about half of the nail area of my thumb. Off, as in , when I dashed to the water tap, the silly boss-man came along carrying a bloody bit of thumb - as in “this is yours, I believe” Weird.
Hurt like hell actually, but with some antispetic stuff (dunno quite what, 'cos it was all in German) - it did recover OK.
I must admit though, that it was not a stiff uper lip that kep me from talkign to a nurse or doctor, but a boss who had no concept of letting the help go to visit one.
Sounds as though you should find a medic, but if for some reason you simply cannot, my (utterly unexpert) guess is that it should be OK. Not sure I’d want to apply polish, but perhaps that is just me.
Probably more like four to six months! Nail Growth
Hair grows the fastest, finger nails next, toenails about a year.
Don’t worry about appearance, the moon doesn’t move much.
I wouldn’t recommened putting acrylic gel directly onto the damaged area of the nail - it can interfere with the nail regrowth.
However, you could slap a false fingernail over your entire nail, being careful to glue it only to the healthy bit of nail, using only the nail glue provided (and not getting creative with crazy glue or something). That will protect the nail bed (which is prone to injury when it’s uncovered like that) and make it look slightly less odd.
Doesn’t sound so bad, actually. You can bite the rest off relatively even using the deep gap area as your starting point, then go after what’s left by scraping at the edges with the point of a pair of scissors until you’re able to start a new peel that you can snag with your teeth.
I worked doing rough carpentry as a high-schooler and into early college, and had the pleasure one day of landing a full-force hammer-blow on my left thumb. The force of the blow literally caused the unfortunate digit to split open. After the bleeding stopped (roughly the same time I ceased spouting loud obscenities), the whole thing swelled up and turned a nice shade of purple. Within a day, my thumbnail simly fell off. Completely. All that was left was this little mangled flap thingy where the cuticle should be. The nail grew back all funky, and remained strangely bumpy for a few months, and after about nine months, I had a reasonably normal-looking thumbnail again.
What surpised me about the whole ordeal is how little I actually seemed to need my thumbnail if I took simple precautions to protect the area where it used to be until it grew back. I thought at first essentially not having one would be constantly painful, but in fact it wasn’t all that bad. Things sealed and dried up pretty well until the nail grew out, and having something covering the area wasn’t uncomfortable at all once the thumb had healed from the concussion.
I’d say if what’s left of the nail looks like it might come off easily and painlessly, you may want to just take it off and keep the area clean, dry and protected with a bandaid or other such dressing. I’ve had other nail accidents (also involving hammers, I’m afraid…I think the inventor if the nail gun deserves a Nobel Prize), and well-meaning attempts to keep a portion of a mangled nail have led to painfully catching or tugging on the useless remains, and nearly pulling off the stuff that I wanted to keep with them.
As always, when in doubt, call your primary care provider.
I smashed a finger in high school and the fingernail turned black and fell off. It took several months for it to grow back in and they grow in in layers which is really neat to watch.
The initial healing wasn’t too bad, as I had broken the bone vertically (ow) and had it in a splint for the first few weeks.