My nail beds on both thumbs and a pointer finger are lifting, separating, splitting. I’m not sure this is necessarily due to psoriasis- it could be any number of systemic things I’ve got going on. But I figured you brains here would know the best way to provide some symptomatic protection, because boy as they disintegrate they are starting to feel very tender!
Do I wander around with heavy duty bandaids on? Is there a better option? Do those nail-strengthening varnishes help at all? The nail plate is cracked all the way through to the nail bed below, so I thought it might be too late for varnish. Any ideas welcome!
Sorry to hear of your nail issues @Jen75, It sounds miserable and does create a concerning further source for infection. I hope you can find some of the cause so that perhaps measures can be taken to slow or halt this. It could well be the PsA simply because it is weird/unexplainable and why only some nails are afflicted. Some systemic diseases tend to hit all nails, hands and feet and are often associated with hair issues. Good old PsA just does its random thing picking and choosing its course! My go to right now for a persistent sinus infection is a mild saline solution. It has been more helpful than antibiotics. Perhaps natures wonder, simple salt water would help followed by another natural thing I keep returning to…olive oil. It beats the heck out of all those chemical laden moisturizers and olive oil has been used for centuries as good for the skin, hair and early medicinal purpose. But I’m certainly no expert, just wishing I could give you a miracle cure. Hopefully others will jump in and shed some light on solutions and ways to ease your discomfort.
I’ve tried the nail strengthening stuff, but haven’t really stuck with it well enough to tell whether they really work or not. What I’ve done typically is keep my nails as short as possible when they’re being wonky, and make sure everything is well moisturized. It won’t necessarily keep the nails from lifting, but it will hopefully make any of this less painful and less prone to infection.
You are right, my hair is appalling right now too! I went from having really quite lovely shiny brunette hair with a touch of grey to wiry looking witch hair in the space of 6 months! Maybe I’ll try the olive oil there too! A haircut probably wouldn’t hurt either . Thankyou for those thoughts, I will give them a try
Thanks Stoney, yes as both you and Amos say - infection is a good point. I think I’m on pretty massive doses of immunosuppressants (four different types at the moment), and though I haven’t noticed being more susceptible, I realise I’ve probably been a bit blasé and should be a bit more careful with that!
Hello, I have the same issue with some of my finger nails and toe nails. I’ve used Tea Tree oil & Helichrysum oil and it’s worked really well. I also added frankincense to my Eucerin moisturizing lotion. That has really worked well for dry skin. Hope you can find a solution that works for you!
Hi Jen. The infection danger ca’nt be emphasized enough. While wearing gardening gloves I still managed to get a nocardia infection through my nail that put me in hospital for about 6 weeks with sepsis when the internal abscess it caused burst. I now wear latex gloves under my gardening gloves.
I haven’t found anything that helps the nails.
Wow Allan, that must have been a tough few months! Thank you for sharing your experience. Can you believe I was just about to go repot my maidenhair fern and was thinking about whether rubber gloves were necessary. That answers that question!
Hi Jen. Sorry to hear that you are dealing with that. Mine have been doing that for about 20 years, I was diagnosed with psa 3 years ago. Go figure. I’m a 70 year old man, nail polish was out of the question. Sorry boys. But I did the band aid thing, hiding my fingers and hands etc. until I said screw it, nothing was going to make it better and now I just leave them. Early on a specialist said he could give me injections which might affect my liver and kidneys. Said no. Also some topical stuff didn’t work. I know you can cover them up but it doesn’t solve your problem, and neither did my comments!! Keep trying, hopefully you find the answer.
Eh my liver and kidneys are pretty unhappy anyway, I’ve got so many organs cranky I’m pretty sure my specialists are going to look at me blankly if I complain about my fingernails I have tried a bandaid which does actually help the tenderness a bit, so that’s probably worthwhile when they are at their worst. I’m hoping it was degeneration that happened during a couple bad flares of other inflammation and it will start to improve soon. Virtual fingers crossed!
Jen. I should have added that my fingernail problems come and go. I could never figure out what caused them to get bad, and still can’t figure that out. But it’s kind of settled in to they are bad twice a year for about a month, then they settle down for awhile. Hope you get some relief, mine have settled to the point where they aren’t hurtful, just ugly!
My finger and toe nails have been effected all my life, or at least just about as far back as I can remember. But I’m of the age that psoriasis under the nail beds wasn’t recognized as such and since the only other psoriasis I had was on my scalp and considered to just be really really really bad dandruff I never knew I had psoriasis until I was middle aged.
I never found anything that helped my fingernails, which are worse than my toe nails. For me nail polish or anything like that makes the already thin fragile peeling flaking ugly nails worse. And mine seem to cycle through bad, really bad and not so bad. They haven’t detached from the beds for awhile now but I think Covid may have triggered a flare (It’s not like I was really sick or anything, I was virtually non symptomatic other than fatigue but that’s nothing new so ) but since recovering, in addition to my sacrum killing me more than normal, I’ve developed small patches of psoriasis in places that I’ve never had it and my nails are starting to get bad again. I’m really hoping they don’t detach and pop off this time. (That’s so special) But the only thing that seems to help even a little bit is working some Clobetasol ointment as far under the nails as possible. (I have to use a toothpick to get under there) But if it’s bad enough nothing works for me so I have to just let it run it’s course. However the Clobetasol does help the cracking bleeding fingertips and the skin peeling off. So that is a bonus.
Sorry, wish I had something helpful but you have quite a bit of company with you in this boat. Hopefully a fellow passenger somewhere has a solution.
Definitely wear tight fitting gloves. The infection I had is usually diagnosed after death. I came within an hour of dying and had a scientific paper written and published on my case! Not something I ever want to go through again. I used to hate wearing gloves to work in but no more.
I had split thumbnails down about halfway to cuticle. The nail varnish just caused my nails to flake off in layer. Dermatologist told me no nail polish ever again it will cause layers to peel. My nail was split about 2 years, a lot of bandaids. I started moisturizing every night and kept nail short. I was moisturizing my dog’s pads one day and had extra on my fingers and figured why not? It was mostly lanolin. And after several months plus using one of thos nail ridge removers, smoother,polish triangle thingies you can get in nail section it healed up. Now I keep all my nails short, moisturized and ridge free.
Thanks Bern, that is where I have ended up - completely short (they are getting smoothed about once every three days) so they don’t catch on anything and medicated moisturiser / heel balm / barrier cream. Mine have split from underneath (yes weird I know) so I don’t think there is anything I can do much to prevent them except the refrain I hear from every one of my 9 immune-disease associated specialists - “you need to get your inflammation under control” . Lol, I’m trying!
. Thankyou for those thoughts, I will give them a try
) but since recovering, in addition to my sacrum killing me more than normal, I’ve developed small patches of psoriasis in places that I’ve never had it and my nails are starting to get bad again. I’m really hoping they don’t detach and pop off this time. (That’s so special) But the only thing that seems to help even a little bit is working some Clobetasol ointment as far under the nails as possible. (I have to use a toothpick to get under there) But if it’s bad enough nothing works for me so I have to just let it run it’s course. However the Clobetasol does help the cracking bleeding fingertips and the skin peeling off. So that is a bonus. 
