Nail Health Self-Assessment

As long as there is no sudden abnormality compared with your own nail condition in the past six months, it is mostly fine. Most of the claims that "you must have 8 months of nails to be healthy" and "vertical lines mean your liver is bad" are mostly rumors.

A while ago, my cousin looked at the nail health post she read on Xiaohongshu and counted for a long time that she only had two crescents. She called a Chinese medicine department overnight.

As for the relationship between the crescent moon and health, there are indeed differences in judgments in different fields. In traditional Chinese medicine theory, the size and number of crescents are used as one of the reference items for the abundance of qi and blood. If the number of crescents suddenly increases or decreases in a short period of time, accompanied by symptoms of dizziness, fatigue, and cold sensitivity, it can indeed be used as an auxiliary basis for syndrome differentiation; but the consensus of modern dermatology is that crescents are essentially regenerated. The keratin cells formed are incompletely keratinized. The position of the methyl group of each person is naturally different. In some people, the methyl group is at the back, and the keratin cells have been completely keratinized by the time they are exposed on the nail surface. Naturally, no crescents can be seen. As long as your crescents are stable, whether it is 1 or 10, it is normal.

I have several faint vertical nail lines on my hands, which I had panicked about before. Later, I asked my classmates in the dermatology department and found out that these lines are just like the fine lines on the face. They will gradually grow after the age of 25. People who like to pick their nails or frequently have manicures and polishes will make them more obvious. It is not a "harbinger of liver and kidney failure" at all. Unless the vertical lines suddenly become dark and thick, with a width exceeding 3mm, and the color is uneven, then it is necessary to investigate the possibility of onychomycosis or even malignant lesions.

There are also white spots on the nails. When many parents see the white spots on their children's nails, they are busy supplementing calcium and zinc. In fact, nine times out of ten, the child stubbed his nails while playing. My little nephew cut his nails while climbing a slide last time. Two weeks later, a small white spot appeared. My sister forced her to drink calcium and zinc oral liquid for a month. Later, the doctor said that it was not necessary at all. She could just cut off the white spots after the nails had grown to the fingertips. Of course, if seven or eight of the ten nails on your hands repeatedly grow white spots, and you also suffer from frequent oral ulcers and hair loss, then consider whether you are deficient in vitamins or trace elements. Just go to the hospital for a blood test, and don't make up for it yourself.

You don't need to find time to do a "physical examination" on your nails at ordinary times. Just scan them more when washing your hands and applying hand cream. If your nails suddenly become yellow and thick recently, and there are flakes on the edges, then don’t hesitate and go to the hospital for a fungal examination first. It is most likely onychomycosis. Don’t buy topical medicines on your own, which will not treat the symptoms and waste time. If your nails suddenly become very pale and do not return to pink after a long time after pressing it, and if you have been feeling dizzy recently and your eyes are dark when you squat down and stand up, you can do a blood test to see if you are anemic. Oh, by the way, there are also those densely packed small pits, like thimbles. If you have skin problems such as psoriasis or atopic dermatitis, it is probably a skin disease that affects your nails. When you go back for a follow-up visit, mention it to the doctor and don’t treat it as a liver disease.

There is also a black line on the nail that everyone is particularly afraid of. Last year, a reader sent me a private message and said that he had a black line on his nail. After searching on Baidu, he thought it was melanoma. He even wrote half of his suicide note. However, he went to the hospital to do pathology and found that it was a benign onychomycosis. It must be said objectively here that there is a very low probability of the nail black line being malignant melanoma, but the vast majority of it is benign, especially in people under the age of 30. Basically, there is no need to be too anxious. As long as it does not rapidly widen in a short period of time, has different colors, and the skin around the nail becomes dark, just observe it regularly. If you are not worried, go for a dermoscopy, which is non-invasive and faster.

Let me talk about my own experience. I loved manicures in the past two years and changed styles once a month. After removing them, I found that my nails were so thin that I could bend them and had layers. I thought it was a big problem, so I stopped doing manicures for half a year. I usually wear rubber gloves when washing things, and smear the edges of my nails when I apply hand cream, and they slowly grew back to their original hard state. Many times, nail problems are not caused by something wrong with your internal organs, but caused by external stimulation. Frequent polishing of the nail surface, constant use of detergent and disinfectant, and even chewing on the nails may cause the nails to become rough, layered, and wrinkled. Don’t scare yourself by jumping into the trap. If you are really unsure, it costs more than ten yuan to get a dermatology account, which is much more reliable than searching online for a long time and guessing.