Some accidents can lift your nail away from your finger partially or completely. This is called nail bed avulsion, and it's extremely painful. This injury is typically accompanied by bleeding and swelling, and it definitely calls for immediate medical attention.
If you lose your nail, it will take about 7 to 10 days for the nail bed to heal. A new fingernail will take about 4 to 6 months to grow to replace the lost nail. Toenails take about 12 months to grow back. The new nail will probably have grooves or ridges and be somewhat misshapen.
Trim off the detached part of a large tear, or leave the nail alone. Cover the nail with tape or an adhesive bandage until the nail has grown out enough to protect the finger or toe. If you trim off the detached nail, you will have less worry about the nail catching and tearing.
Unless the area of bleeding is very small, an affected nail will usually fall off on its own after several weeks because the pooled blood has separated it from its bed. A new fingernail can regrow in as little as 8 weeks. A new toenail may not fully regrow for about 6 months.
These injuries are usually painful when they happen, because there are many nerves under and around the nails. Sometimes, a physical injury to the nail causes bruising, or may cause the nail to fall off before it regrows. A bruised nail may feel tender as it heals.
Soaking the affected fingernail in warm water for 20 minutes at a time can help relieve symptoms caused by an injury. Keeping your hands dry and warm will help relieve chronic paronychia. Keeping your nails clean can also help.
The nail bed is moist, soft, and sensitive. It needs to be protected from injury for the first 7 to 10 days until it dries out and becomes hard. Keep it covered with a nonstick dressing or a bandage without adhesive.
Acute paronychia — This usually appears as a sudden, very painful area of swelling, warmth and redness around a fingernail or toenail, usually after an injury to the area. An acute paronychia typically is caused by an infection with bacteria that invade the skin where it was injured.
How Do You Cover Up A Lost Fingernail? A bandage is the best way, though certainly not the prettiest. Trimming and painting a bandage to look more like a nail will be less noticeable.
Dark purple or black bruising to the fingertip or the nail bed known as a subungual hematoma. Separation of the nail from the nail bed referred to as onycholysis. Laceration through the nail, cuticle and/or nail bed. Deep grooves across the nail called Beau's lines that form months after initial injury.
Surgical nail removal can be done in your doctor's office. Your doctor will give you an injection in the finger or toe to prevent pain. Then your doctor will use a tool to loosen the skin around the nail and separate the nail from the skin. If only part of the nail is diseased, only the diseased part is removed.
When a bruise develops under the fingernail, pressure can build up and cause pain. If this pressure becomes severe, the fingernail may fall off. In most cases, though, your fingernail will remain in place, but you may notice discoloration around the site of the injury.
Fingernails that fall off after an injury should grow back within 6 months. Toenails can take up to 18 months.
Nail trauma can lead to nail loosening, and possibly even complete loss of the nail.
The nail plate is strongly attached to the nail bed and does not contain any nerves or blood vessels.
What Do COVID Nails Look Like? Beau's lines are grooves that run horizontally across your nail plate, per an August 2021 paper published in the journal Skin Appendage Disorders. COVID nails/Beau's lines can look like ridges, grooves, or indentations, according to Dr. Day.
Treatment for a black fingernail
Apply ice (wrapped in a cloth) or cold therapy for 10 minutes at a time, every hour to reduce bleeding and swelling. Elevate the hand to reduce bleeding and swelling. This aids the tissue fluids to flow away from the site of injury using gravity to assist.
Nails don't need surface access to air because they get oxygen and nutrients from your blood. Keeping nails hydrated is important if yours are prone to breakage, and a pause in polishing to moisturize would help.
With a condition known as onycholysis, the fingernails become loose and can separate from the nail bed. The separated part of the nail becomes opaque with a white, yellow or green tinge. Sometimes detached nails are associated with injury or infection.
If your doctor told you how to care for your wound, follow your doctor's instructions. If you did not get instructions, follow this general advice: After the first 24 to 48 hours, you can remove the bandage and gently wash around the wound with clean water 2 times a day.
When your finger experiences a shock, like getting stuck in a car door, the matrix temporarily pauses the growth of the fingernail. That pause means the proteins are no longer connected.
Many injuries to your nail bed can be fully repaired. For example, your nail should return to normal after a subungual hematoma is drained. However, some severe injuries can lead to a deformed nail. This is more likely when the base of your nail bed is injured.
One of them is the nailbed, the skin below the surface of the nail that extends to just before the fingertip.
A thick nail may take several tries. As soon as the hole is complete, blood will escape and the pain will be relieved. Expect drainage of clear or slightly bloody fluid for 2 to 3 days.