How to re-grow a toenail after it's been ripped off (may be TMI)

[mugglemomof3]

I thought I would share my experience. I was at a water-park last year with my kiddos - one of those places where they have the huge plastic slide that you can ride down on a sheet of running water. Those things are way fun - but as I learned can be very dangerous too!

I was going down on my stomach, feet first, on a dare from my oldest DS. The big toenail on my right foot got caught on a seam and was instantly ripped off. Clean (but not at all pain-free!!!!). OMG that hurt.

Anyway - when the nail started growing back in - it came in crooked and started growing down, into my skin. I went to a podiatrist who removed that nail (again - very painful) and told me not to wear heels or any shoe that would squeeze my toes.

Again the nail started growing back in crooked and down. This hurts like hell, btw (please pardon my French!:pissed: )

Another trip to another podiatrist and this one tells me that big toe nails never ever grow back in right and that he will just remove it again and cauterize the nailbed so that no nail ever grows again. Well, I didn't want this "remedy" because I really like to have my toenails painted (I wear flip flops mostly year round). So I told him no thanks and had him just remove the nail again. He was very upset with me but I had finally gotten a good idea.

I went straight to the local beauty shop and had a nail technician paint an acrylic "fake nail" on top of my skin on the big toe. She looked at my other foot as a guide to make it the same size and shape. I've had to go in about once a month to get a "fill" for looks.

Last month I had her take off the "fake nail" and underneath is my own very happy, very straight big toenail. I haven't had any problems with it growing in crooked or down, and even though the nail is not very strong, I know it will become that way as time goes on. The nail technician tells me that if I had just come to her in the first place - I would have never had any problems. I never dreamed this would work but was finally desperate.

It takes about one year for a full toenail (on the big toe) to grow back in btw.

Hope this helps someone in the future, although I never would wish anyone in the world to lose a big toenail in such a horrible fashion!!!!!!

And - always wear swimming socks when visiting water parks!!:eureka:

[Kitty]

OMG that all sounded awful!!! Ouch ouch ouch!!!!
I have a toenail story too, but not nearly as painful sounding as yours.
When I was in highschool I went with a friend to Cedar Point and wore her too-tight-for-me shoes all day. When we got back my baby toenail was black, but didnt really hurt.
A couple of months later I was sitting on my bed kind of playing with my toes as I was reading a magazine and my pinky toenail suddenly without much resistance just lifted off! :boggle: :sick: I almost got sick from the feeling of it.
Underneath my toenail was a very thin new toenail that I guess had been growing underneath the damaged one!
Obviously nothing like what happend to you, which sounds much MUCH worse! But I guess my toenail grew in the same way yours has been.
Well if i every lose a toenail entirely, I know what to do!

:happy:

[Meezer]

Oh my goodness! OUCH!!

I currently have a black nail on one of my big toes. I injured it playing tennis (and boy did it hurt)! I'm just waiting for it to fall off at this point.

Yikes! After reading all of this, I'm scared about how it's going to grow back in now. I'll keep y'all posted... and thanks for the tip!

[lizzernog]

:boggle: AHHH. Oh my gossssshh. I keep cringing just thinking about that! OWWWW!

I feel pain for you in my thumb. I shut my thumb in the car door about a month ago and I have a big ol' crack horizontally on my nail. It's all shades of burgundy and black now, but it hasn't fallen off yet. It was so painful. My nerves are still in shock a bit and it's still sore. But thankfully I can finally bend my thumb! Funny though, when it happened I stared at it for a minute before taking it out, saw the blood and went, huh, that's interesting. Two minutes later I was in so much pain that I was shaking. So I feel for you!

Thank goodness it's starting to work out right for you. I'll remember this if I have any future problems when/if my nail falls off.

[BBGrrl]

acrylics are great for guiding shape problems back into position. I am glad you found something that worked. And wow it sounds like you found a wonderful nail tech.

[wtchmel]

OMG!!!! I can't even begin to think how painfull that was, i'm so sorry you had to experience that!
It's very interesting that using an acrylic nail fixed the problem. very interesting. My mother has no nail on her big toe, and always puts a sticky fake nail there so she can wear sandals.
I'm glad this worked out for you.

[SchnauzerMom]

Eeeew, makes me cringe just thinking about what happened to you. I get the willies if I bend a nail, I can't imagine what you went through. Glad it finally grew out!:boggle:

[hairymonster]

Augh! What a painful experience!

My brother's big toenails (both) turned black too, from wearing too-tight shoes. They seem to be taking forever to drop out. It's been months already and it hurts whenever anything touches the nails. Is that normal? Would it be advisable to have it pulled out by a podiatrist instead of waiting for it to drop out?

[Pierre]

I once had a big toenail either come off completely or get black and then come off. (I think it got black, because someone told me I should have made a hole in it to drain the blood.) What grew back was smooth but irregular-shaped (this is the subunguis, which grows from most of the nail bed) followed by the thick part (the unguis, which grows from the lunula). That was years ago; now the nail is tough, strong, and hennaed. :)

[wavebaby]

No advice, but, OOUUUUUCCHHHHH! your poor toe! I do hope all goes well with it.

[enitsirk]

Oooh! I'm glad it worked :)

Poor toe :/

I actually misread the thread title and thought you'd be looking for advice..was reading the OP thinking 'hrmm..she just needs something to guide the nail...' and then got to the acrylic part and had to re read the title :ooh:


The only time I've lost a nail is when I was about 10 and slammed my pinky into a door jam- OW..that was painful. Didn't have any problems with it growing back though.

[ravenlox]

oh my goodness, all I can say is ooooouuuucccchh. toenail and the word rip, just dont go.

[hairyfairy]

OUCHHHHHH!!!! I can feel your pain because I've had plenty of nail experiences, too. I'm not going to repeat all of them here but the most recent (Dec 04) involved a gravity assisted close encounter between my right big toe and my juicer. It had two effects:

1. That nail was fungus infected. When it fell off revealing the new nail beneath, lo and behold, no fungus...clean pink nail:whoohoo:.

2. The new nail is flatter and more deeply embedded than the other nails:purplex: .

Now I have one more toe nail with fungus, but I really really do not want to apply this method of treatment:boggle:

[Love My Cop]

Whoa, that had to be painful, painful painful! :ooh:

[Stephanie]

I just about got sick reading that, but holy cow, who would've known. I wouldn't have even thought to do that. Good for you! :D

[mugglemomof3]

Stephanie - the thing is - I didn't think about it either for months and months. I researched the internet till I was blue in the face trying to find a solution and finally went to the podiatrist. Neither one of them (a woman and a man) were any help whatsoever. WHAT??:boggle: ! I mean - they are feet doctors, and toenails are a big part of the feet, no?!!!!

Anyway - I overheard a lady in the grocery store say she had to put tips on her toenails to get them long enough to pain in summer, and that's what finally gave me the idea. Since then I've found out that lots of women get fake tips and fake entire nails put on so they can wear sandals! Who knew!

I've had tons of pinky toenails fall off and grow back just fine, but the big toenails (cause they're so big) are a problem.

Thanks everybody for your sympathetic "ouches"!!!!! It really was excruciatingly painful and when your feet hurt, most of your body hurts for some reason too!!!!!

HairyMonster - as far as your brother - what may be causing his pain is the new nail growing in under the black one, and growing in crooked or down into the nailbed. I would suggest someone looking at it for him (because it's so dang hard to get up close and personal with your own feet, eh?) - but maybe a nail tech would be better than a podiatrist? My little lady works wonders with nails! Tell him I feel his pain

[hairymonster]

HairyMonster - as far as your brother - what may be causing his pain is the new nail growing in under the black one, and growing in crooked or down into the nailbed. I would suggest someone looking at it for him (because it's so dang hard to get up close and personal with your own feet, eh?) - but maybe a nail tech would be better than a podiatrist? My little lady works wonders with nails! Tell him I feel his pain
I have no idea where to find a nail tech, but I'll keep that in mind and take a closer look at his toenails too. Thanks mugglemomof3! I'll tell him what you said :happy:

[nicolezoie]

Wow, I never knew about the acrylic-guiding thing! That is terriffic! :eureka:

I have a couple of toenail stories - one involving a trampoline and my pinkee toenail, and another involving a 5-day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon and my big toenail. Both quite painful. The Grand Canyon didn't completely eat my big toenail, but the bruising did take about a year to grow out completely. That toenail is completely fine now, if not thicker than before. My pinkee tonenail, unfortunately, has never grown properly since.

[unaspenser]

Owwwwie muggles! You poor thing! The acrylic guiding actually makes sense, since the underneath toenail would kind of be "glued" to the acrylic nail every time you got a fill, and that would prevent it from veering off into your nail bed. It makes me laugh that your nail tech knew more about what to do then the podiatrists. :rolleyes: (this smiley isn't as cute as the LHC one...)

[Carolyn]

Ouchie! I could feel your pain. I've had a couple of nail incidents too. My biggest worry was permanently losing the nail. Those darn doctors just want to chop things off and get rid of them. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

[Calysto]

I just wanted to say thanks to single mom for the post regarding the toe nail. I recently ripped my big toe's toe nail completley off, and was surprised to find out it would take at least a year (if not more) to grow back.
(Silly doctor said three months..no problem,...grrrrrr...liar)

I have now heard many horror stories from others that had the same thing happen,
(now I understand what an effective torchure ripping someones nail off can be!):boggle: :drool: :gurn: :sob: :stress:
, and was told to go to an estitition to have a "Gel" nail put on once the healing is finished.
This would help the new nail underneath grow strait..

Also word to those that have this happen to them, if you lose your nail you are more susceptible to fungus infections in the future, with the new nail.
Oh Joy!
:purplex: Cheers!

[LisaJaney]

Oh, Muggle, that's a horrible story. Not because it's graphic, but because I can almost FEEL the pain (a teeny tiny BIT of the pain, that is; nothing compared to what you felt!) Oh my gosh, I'd be screaming and puking, I swear.

My kids and husband are always telling me "you shoudl go down the big slide!" at Silverwood. It's something like a hundred-foot drop or maybe it's more, I dunno. All I know is that they tell you to KEEP YOUR LEGS TOGETHER because the people emerge from the bottom, pulling their shorts and bathingsuits out of their buttcracks. I am sure a person would get a high-powered enema from it all (high colonic, anyone?) I've had those from waterskiing, and don't EVER want another...water just SHOOTING up your hiney....no fun at all, and it hurts like a bugger, too! I politely turn the slide down every single time.

Still and all, the toenail is MUCH worse! I'm so glad it's growing back for you! What Calysto said makes sense, too (about being slightly more susceptible to nail-bed infections), but I'm sure you'll keep an eye on that from now on. Bummer if that's the case, but I'm SO glad you have your nail back!

[tjpoe]

First of all, let me say thanks for you story, its quite inspiring. Yesterday evening I was helping my dad load a truck onto a trailor and since i came from work i was just wearing my flip-flops, which i ALWAYS wear. anyways, the ramps to the trailer were about 50 lbs, and needless to say, i dropped one on my foot, i didn't really notice what happened, it just felt like something fell on my foot, until i looked down and saw all the blood. i came inside and cleaned it. Theres a big cut across the middle where the ramp landed, but it mostly bleeds from the edges where it ripped out. after i cleaned it, and almost passed out from lack of blood, I wrapped some gauze around it. its still bleeding a bit, a day later, but it looks a lot better.

anyways, i was curious if there were any.... "manly" solutions to helping my nail grown back should there be any problems. I don't know if there will be yet, since this just happened yesterday. but I really like to wear sandles, and i hate shoes, so it would definately be helpful and appreciated. I just don't really know that much about acrylic nails... can they be put on to match my real nail? or are they mostly painted for women? i don't really know much about fake nails, so please bear with me.

thanks in advance,

Tanner

[LisaJaney]

Tanner, I am sure they could do the nail in a natural color. I haven't had fake-nails for YEARS, but know that they do them now to look like French Manicure (the painted-tan "body" with the white tip, you could just to all-over tan). When *I* had them years ago, I could get away with just polishing them with clear and the nail was just a bit WHITER than what my normal nailbed would look. Or you could just paint it tan like a natural nailbed and, while it would be a BIT differently-colored than your other nails, I don't think it would necessarily be an attention-grabber.

Speaking as a woman, I would think it would be fine to have that done on a man's toe. If I may be so bold, I think it would probably look better than to see the roughened, naked nailbed minus its nail. I can't imagine that it would look bad at all. Of course, you wouldn't want it really LONG, but they can trim them to be any length you need it to be (I imagine keeping it shortish would be good, so it's not constantly getting pushed against the toe of a shoe and making it harder to stay ON)

That's my .02 -- I think it would be fine to do! And speedy-healing to your toe. That sounds painful, too! Blood doesn't normally bother me, but when there's a LOT of it, it's kinda scary to see it all OUTside of ya! :nosey:

[tumblingchic18]

I was recently running around with a friend and accidentally had my foot slammed in a door! The big toenail was ripped all the way out (it was confirmed in the Emergency Room shortly thereafter) and they said (I'm pretty sure it was so they wouldn't worry me) it would grow back in 2 months. It has now been FIVE WEEKS and I see now sign of nail growth. There is a large bulbous sort of white thing which i'm pretty sure is the moon of my nail. When is it supposed to grow back? And how long will that take?