Healthy Cuticles Lead to Healthy Nails

Patients come to me every day with nail diseases; sometimes the problem is actually the patient’s own fault.

Nails are an appendage of the skin. They’re important for function (you couldn’t pick bugs off your partner without them) as well as for appearance. When they are diseased or damaged they can be exquisitely painful and unsightly.

The most preventable, self-inflicted nail condition — paronychia — is caused by removing cuticles. Paronychia is a painful inflammation of the fingernail that often results from scraping off or pushing back cuticles.

The cuticle serves the important function of sealing the nail-skin junction. If you break this seal, then irritants like soap and infections like bacteria or yeast get in the space between the nail and the skin, leading to painful paryonychia.

I know that some women feel their nails look better without the cuticle, but, trust me, nails with cuticles look much better than big, red, swollen fingertips with bumpy, ridged nails.

What should you do?

Nails dry out just like skin does. When you apply moisturizer to your hands, massage it into your nails and cuticles as well. Moisturizer is best applied just after washing your hands when the skin is still damp.
Don’t soak your fingernails in warm water. Use warm olive oil instead, then blot dry with a soft cloth.
Mail me your all your cuticle pushers; I’ll recycle them. You don’t need them anymore.
Never have a manicurist cut your cuticles. It is the surest way to contract a nail infection.

Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik

March 6, 2008 | Filed Under Health and Beauty

Comments

4 Responses to “Healthy Cuticles Lead to Healthy Nails”

Ami on March 6th, 2008 5:27 pm

Thanks

You might be frustrated to find out that the advice in women’s magazines I’ve read is to only let a manicurist cut your cuticles.

I like the olive oil advice. I don’t soak my fingers intentionally (very guilty of grabbing a rag without donning gloves first, though) but that sounds like it would feel lovely.

I had exema on my fingers during pregnancy that had deep cracks around my nail beds. Is it possible I have a scar around there that I can’t see that causes a chronic weakness is one section?

Also, is it true the wearing polish and removing it can strip a layer off the nails themselves and weaken them? What about buffing nails?
Dr. Benabio on March 8th, 2008 5:47 pm

Ami -
The nail bed and nail plate are intimately connected. Damage or scars of the nail bed can certainly disrupt the nail growing over it.

Wearing polish is not really a problem, but repeated cleaning with acetone can be an issue. Acetone, or nail polish remover, doesn’t strip anything off your nail, but it does dry out the nail plate, weakening the nail.

Buffing nails is OK, but in moderation. You can thin the plate too much, leading to a weaker nail if you over do it.
Lizz on August 29th, 2008 11:28 am

I have my cuticle removed every 10 days, for over 15 years now, and nothing has happened to me. Most of my friends (girls) do it, too, and I have never ever heard of any of them getting an infection caused by taking the cuticles. Maybe it´s because we go to good salons that use only disposable materials, or maybe the enamel kills all the bacterias…
Karen on September 9th, 2008 6:56 am

I have a sore cuticle because I put my hand in my pocket earlier today, where there was a sharp pencil and the tip of the pencil lead broke off and is stuck under my finger cuticle. I can’t get at it with tweezers or a pin, it’s made doubly difficult as it’s my right hand and I am right handed! I have bathed it in warm soapy water and put Germolene and a sticking plaster on. Will it come out on its own or is there anything I can do to help it out? I can’t ease it out by pushing from behind like I would with a splinter in my finger, as it doesnt move.
Thanks.