A quick disclaimer to say that I am not a medical professional and that you should not make any changes to the way you look after your psoriatic nails without discussing it with your doctor first. This is simply my personal experience of living with psoriatic nails.
I know I'm a bit out of sorts at the moment with my Living With blog posts due to my recent absence but I really want to continue with this little series of living with my chronic health issues. Having covered life with migraines, body and scalp psoriasis, today I wanted to talk about living with psoriatic nails which I have had for over three years. I was in two minds about whether to include a photo of my nails in this post as I didn't want to gross people out but after seeking a few second opinions the consensus was that what I'm about to show you isn't that bad to look at. If you do get grossed out easily then take this paragraph as a warning that photos will be at the bottom of this post so if you'd rather not see my unattractive nails then don't go to the end of this post. You've been warned!
A few months after I was diagnosed with
psoriatic arthritis (PsA) I noticed a white-ish ripple like discolouration
on the nail of one of my arthritic fingers. It wasn’t on top of the nail (as I
couldn’t feel it) but more like part of the nail itself or at times looked like
it was underneath the nail. Over the coming weeks the ripple got larger and the
natural white tip of my nail started to expand down the nail so that the top
half was now completely white with the bottom half still the natural pink
colour.
I had read about people with PsA having a
higher likelihood, than those suffering from psoriasis alone, of developing
psoriatic nails so it didn’t come as a complete shock. However, as time
progressed I noticed that another nail was becoming psoriatic but unlike the
first nail, the finger of this particular nail was not arthritic. This confused me a little
as in my head I had associated the arthritic finger with later going onto
develop the psoriatic nail. A few weeks later the finger that was not arthritic
but had the psoriatic nail did become arthritic. So I thought perhaps the
psoriatic nail was some sort of ‘warning’ sign that the finger would go on to
develop arthritis. But I was wrong!
In the coming months and years I quickly realised that
there was no correlation between the psoriatic nails and the arthritic fingers,
and nor did one act as a warning sign of the other. Currently all the nails on
my left hand are psoriatic but I only have arthritis in two of the fingers. On
my right hand, two nails are psoriatic but only one of those belongs to an
arthritic finger.
As well as the white-ish discolouration, my
psoriatic nails also developed a whole host of other issues;
- The nails all developed a lot of ridges in them.
- The nail tips became really thick and it's like there was some sort of skin growing under parts of the nail tip.
- The nails developed these tiny little holes in them, like little pits and my main concern with this was the risk of the nail getting infected, but that has never happened.
- The corners of nails with a lot of white discolouration would lift up and grow upwards and outwards making them more likely to break or catch on things.
- Some of the nails started to lift up from the finger / nail bed itself, especially the ones where the white tip had spread further down the nail. This was most concerning as I was worried about the nail completely lifting up from my finger and just dangling from the cuticle. Worst still, I started to have nightmares about waking up to find that there was no nail on my finger. Luckily this has never happened and the nightmares stopped as time went on and I got used to life with psoriatic nails.
- The psoriatic nails were also more prone to breakages and became quite brittle and dry. As the tiny holes would grow out the jagged edge they created would catch on my clothes, sofa, hair etc. Sometimes if the hole was at the bottom of the nail but close to the side, it would cause a bit of a horizontal crack in the nail which was almost impossible to file down and I would have to wait weeks for it to grow to the tip so I could cut it down and file it.
My rheumatologist told me that some of the
stronger treatments for arthritis also have a beneficial effect on psoriatic
nails but I wasn’t and didn’t want to go onto the stronger medication until I
absolutely had to because of the side effects they cause. He told me that there
weren’t really any treatments specifically for psoriatic nails and those that
were used by doctors often had the potential for terrible side effects so it
was always about weighing up the risk-benefit. He also mentioned that some
people have had steroidal injections in their nails but he said that he could
guarantee that if I had this injection in one nail, I would not have it in
another as the pain is sooo bad. Well, with the pathetic pain threshold that I
have, that was enough to put me off that option!!! I was told that if I ever did
get a fungal or bacterial infection then I would be prescribed a treatment for
that but in the meantime I should keep my nails clean, dry and short.
As I’ve lived with my psoriatic nails I
have learnt little ways of protecting them as much as I can and minimising
further damage;- I keep them as dry as possible because I always worry about the risk of a fungal or bacterial infection if they’re constantly getting wet.
- I always wear gloves when washing the dishes or clothes to keep them dry.
- I cut them as short as I possibly can as the longer they are the more likely they are to break or catch on things.
- I always file away sharp edges as best I can.
- I massage natural oil (like argan, coconut, almond or olive oil) on and all around all of my nails just before I shower as a way of providing them with some sort of a protective layer from the water.
- I also massage natural oil into my nails before bed because I feel like I’m feeding them goodness and it helps calm the brittleness and dryness thus reducing breakages and cracks.
Over time I have come to accept my sausage fingers and psoriatic nails to the point that I don’t really hide them from people anymore. If people want to judge me or give me funny looks because of my fingers and nails then that’s up to them. I may occasionally give them a hard stare back if I see someone who is very obviously staring at them :o) Sometimes people will just ask me what happened to my fingers in which case I’m happy to explain it to them. At the end of the day whilst it does make me sad that I don’t have very pretty, feminine nails and hands, I just remind myself that at least I still have nails on my fingers and fingers on my hand – that is still a lot to be grateful for and happy about :o)
Love Sheen xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to leave a comment and you don't have to be a blogger to do so. I love reading each and every one :o)