Damaged and Thickened Nails
Toenails that have been damaged or have grown thicker over time – left untreated can become painful……
Many people think they have fungal nail infections when in truth their nails may just be damaged due to a lifetime of sport or activity. It’s always important to make sure you get the correct diagnosis so seeing a podiatrist is essential and following a diagnosis, treatments can be discussed.
Damaged and thickened nails are often caused by trauma, which can mean either a single traumatic incident, like dropping something on the toe or a prolonged, caused by activity or sport. The trauma affects the formation of the nail cells either temporarily or repeatedly. Where the trauma is sufficient enough the nail will temporarily stop growing and when it does start growing again a line can appear. Sometimes there may also be some bruising under the nail.
Repeated trauma can cause the nail cells to form not one row at a time but one row of cells on top of another, which can lead to discolouration and a thickening-bumpy appearance to the nail. This nail can often be misdiagnosed as fungal. The nails can be discoloured either darkly from bruising or normally around the cuticle, with a yellow or white colour due to more than one nail cell forming on top of another.
What differs with damaged nails from fungal nails is that often the damage will present on the same toes of both feet, for example on both little toenails.
Your podiatrist will diagnose what your nail problem is and why it is happening. Following this the podiatrist may choose to cut the nails to remove the damaged area or reduce any presenting thickness to make the nails appear more “normal”.
