Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Nails grow slowly and therefore tell of the past months, not of yesterday.
Also known as: nail diagnosis · reading fingernails · spoon nails · ridges · clubbing
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
A look at your fingernails costs nothing and sometimes reveals something — gentle self-observation, not a diagnosis. Colour, shape and surface can flag things that are easy to address, above all iron deficiency. First things first: white flecks, fine ridges and small dents are almost always harmless. But if a single nail changes for good, darkens or curves strongly, a calm look by the doctor is worth it — usually for reassurance. Tap a sign on the graphic to learn more.
Frequent water/soap and remover make nails brittle — gloves and cream help more than any pill.
A fingernail fully regrows in ~6 months — changes take time.
A single brown to black band in one nail that grows, widens or spreads onto the skin fold belongs looked at. Several even bands are ordinary on darker skin.
A fingernail grows out in about half a year, a toenail takes up to a year and a half. A crosswise groove therefore tells when something happened — not that it is happening now.
Nails that dip like a bowl in the middle are one of the few nail signs with a clear link — here to iron deficiency. Ferritin settles it in one blood draw.
Fine dimples in the nail, yellowish patches like a drop of oil under the plate and a lifting from the nail bed belong to psoriasis — even when the skin is quiet.
It is the seal against bacteria and fungi. Push it back yes, cut it away no — most nail-bed infections start exactly there.
A fingernail grows about three millimetres a month, a toenail one millimetre — so a fingernail renews itself in about six months, a big toenail in twelve to eighteen. That is why the event behind a crosswise ridge lies months back: about three months for a ridge in the middle of the nail. White spots almost always come from a small knock and not from a calcium shortfall; they grow out with the nail.
Pale nail beds can suggest anaemia/iron deficiency. A new, persistent dark streak should be looked at.
Spoon shape → often iron. Strongly bulbous, curved ends (clubbing) → check heart/lungs.
Lengthwise ridges are usually normal (increase with age). Cross ridges (Beau’s lines) often follow fever, stress or surgery and grow out.
Yellowish, thick, crumbly nails are often a fungus — usually harmless but stubborn; treatable. Mostly a matter of patience.
A single nail that changes for good, a new dark streak, strong curving, or bleeding under the nail without a knock: have it looked at.
White flecks are often explained as calcium deficiency; they are in fact harmless knock marks. Brittle nails, too, are mostly from water/soap, not a deficiency.
Some traditions read broad organ correspondences from nails. As a mindful prompt to look closer it may give something — as a finding there is no research on it.
Harmless, but mostly works only with real deficiency. Not a must.
Clearly effective with proven deficiency, useless without. Take only with a documented deficiency — excess is harmful.
Both directions of the thyroid show in the nail: with underactivity it turns brittle and grows slowly, with overactivity it sometimes lifts from the nail bed. A nail grows over 3–4 months — so it shows what was months ago.