Nail Issues

Dear Sir or Madam, Began ACV soak not quite two weeks ago. I am hopeful. Does the ACV have to be unfiltered? Very expensive. $20 for a gallon which only lasts three days. Is it safe to reuse a batch? If so for how long? I was not able to get any response from the on-line chat. Would appreciate knowing. Thank you, Carmen

For foot soaking for fungal issues we have always used distilled white vinegar ($3-4 a gallon.) We use 1/2 white vinegar and 1/2 water and reuse the soak one time. This has worked well for my family and has been inexpensive. I hope it works for you!

~Mama to Many~

To save money when doing foot baths, I use rubber boots (with out internal insulation so they dont take forever to dry and get nasty) and a small amount of liquid is enough to cover the entire foot and I can still do other things in the house.j

Cadillacrob, I fixed a nail fungus problem that I had had for over 6 years. I drank the apple cider vinegar - 2 tblspns twice a day. It completely healed the problem but it took three months. You could see the new nail coming in without the fungus. It is better to drink the apple cider because the problem will still be inside you.

Please try this: Soak your feet at least 5 times per week. Dry them well. Buy some Vick's Vapo Rub. (NO GENERICS PLEASE. ) Dip Q~Tips in the Vick's and lubricate EVERY affected toenail. (NO DOUBLE ~ DIPPING. ) Use a cuticle pusher or pointed nail file and GENTLY push some of the VIck's under the affected nails. When all affected toes on both feet have been lubricated, cover each foot with a sock or bootie and wear them overnight. Wash Vick's off the next morning. Repeat this 5 nights per week until nails are looking good and then decrease or discontinue using your own trial and error judgement. This really works!

My objective here is to gather some sites that I have found on the issue of finger nail problems.

http://www.handresearch.com/finger-nails/nail-tutor-start.htm

www.aafp.org/afp/20010315/1113.html

I found that in the last paragraph it states that Acetic acid soaks (white vinegar?) were helpful.

The two things that gave me a huge improvement in my nails are 1) protein and 2) cutting out colas. Even just cutting out colas, I noticed a phenomonal improvement in the space of inside a week. Now about 6 weeks on, I cannot *get* my nails to break, no matter how hard I bend them, and they don't chip or split anymore, and I haven't had one hangnail since. I also have to cut them every week now, where I was only having to do it every 4-6 weeks before. I found biotin more helpful for hair strength rather than nails. I can speak for this as last year, while regularly using biotin, when I began upping my protein intake to 50g per day, my nails grew amazingly. But not with the same strength and hardnesss I get from abstaining from cola drinks. It's the phosphoric acid that draws the minerals out of your nails. You really will notice a difference quick.

Citygirl27: It's good to here of your improvements. As for sufficient Protein, Jim Humble recently devoted an article to it's merit. Many folks nowadays are vegetarian (for whatever reason) and do suffer from certain Amino Acid deficiencies (although many are in denial of this condition). Over the yrs, and especially in the event of very bad health, it simply breaks my heart to see anything (plant or animal) suffer; but I try not get over-sentimental about the animal ethics or cruelty issues and at the same time support organizations that help prevent unnecessary suffering of either wildlife or livestock. I think a good model for animal protein consumption would be the Native American, where gratitude is given to the animal as well as the Great Spirit. Ultimately it's how we live our life after eating animal derived protein.

I took borax for my broken bones and noticed a similar thing. The urge to nibble my nails was dramatically reduced. It felt like my nails were stronger, but that couldn't possibly have happened so fast (in hours).

In any case, breaking my wrist was the start of six months of great nails. I relapsed eventually. But in the years since I have tried a borax supplement again and the effect is repeatable. I suspect strontium helps too.

Once or twice a year I mix 10g of Borax in a 1 litre bottle and store it in the fridge. I drink about 20-30ml a day with a touch of vinegar to neutralize the alkalinity. It was an effective dose of ~300mg borax (so ~30mg boron). After a month or so I lose the drive to keep doing it, so take a break. I tried for years taking 3mg boron supplements of sort and never noticed anything.

Like a blood blister under your nail? If it's what Im thinking of, its filled with blood under there making it sore. This is what my husband does when he crushes his finger in something and gets one of those; he heats up a needle red hot, and pushes slightly on the nail, very slightly. The needle should slip right through, into the blood pocket so it wont hurt anything. The pressure is relieved, and no further damage is done. He once did this to his aunt's foot after she hurt it, and the blood squirt like 5 feet into the air! Talk about pressure!

That's exactly what the Doctor in ER did to me but he used a large Paper Clip and shoved it right through my fingernail! While it was painful at that moment I was relieved of the pain and pressure.

These ridges are called Beau's lines. Googling this generally brings images of extreme cases but it can give you an insight into possible causes.

I've had ridges on my nails for as long as I can remember, and as they grow out they split along the ridges. My former dermatologist had no idea why. My current dermatologist said they were just brittle and I should take fish oil. They aren't actually brittle - they're soft and flexible - but I got the fish oil anyway since it has other benefits. It has been about 18 months since I started taking fish oil and my nails aren't any better. More recently (about 3 months ago) I started drinking organic unfiltered ACV, usually 3-4 Tablespoons over the couse of a day. Still no nail improvement. In fact they're worse because a couple of them seem to have developed fungus - the nails are pulling away from the nail bed. I started applying ACV directly to the afflicted nails at bedtime. This seemed to help at first - I had cut off the separated part of the nails and they grew back in a bit - but after a few weeks the nails started separating again (even though I was still doing the nighttime ACV regimen). I'm now soaking my nails in ACV instead of just applying with a cotton swab (typing this with the other hand) - will keep soaking nightly and see if the condition improves.

I have read that marked ridges and cracks on fingernails is a sign of Iron deficiency.

Trinh, in my case I don't think the ridges are caused by iron deficiency - I have always taken multivitamins with iron, and my iron levels have always been fine whenever I've had bloodwork done. Anyway, to follow up on my 12/27/11 post, for the last 3 weeks I have been soaking my fingernails in straight ACV for 20-30 minutes a night (had to skip a few nights here and there) and I'm definitely noticing an impact on the fungus. The nails are starting to grow a little higher up the nail bed (they had only been attached about halfway up; I had been clipping off the detached parts). I can also see a color difference between the new growth near the cuticle (light pink-ish) and the older growth (slightly darker). The new growth still has ridges, but I'll keep soaking to keep the fungus away.

Bleug's lines are HORIZONTAL lines. Not vertical lines.

Is it possible that the darker colors of nail polish are staining your nails and the hydrogen peroxide is bleaching the stains away?

No, it's definitely dark red/brown patches, with every passing year another nail is affected. I actually do not wear dark polish that often anymore because of this and at that, just in the summer months/special occasions. When I used to wear the pinks and reds more often, the polish would stain all the nails yellow and it would have to just grow out. These 3 patches do not grow out which is why I've resorted to a 'strong' peroxide. The question I'm left with is, is this a nail fungus? I was hoping someone else had a similar experience.

Do you use a base coat before the polish? I've found that these make a HUGE difference in not only keeping the nails from being stained after wearing the polish, but it also helps to keep the polish on and looking good without chipping or flaking off as much.

All nail polish colored or not is not good, the poisonous chemicals in it is absorbed by the nail to the system beside it prevent the nail from breathing or absobinng air and water making it brittle.