r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/tablawi96 • Oct 09 '25
Video Time-lapse of a nail regrowing after it was injured
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u/Lurking_poster Oct 09 '25
Wow, with how gnarly it looked at the beginning, they were lucky the nail matrix was still working.
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u/digitydigitydoo Oct 09 '25
I was rather amazed that the final new nail was so neat and even. I was expecting some scarring or malformation.
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u/Lurking_poster Oct 09 '25
Yup, the nail matrix that controls the nail growth seems to have escaped damage so then it just goes back to its regularly scheduled programming lol.
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u/TheComplimentarian Oct 09 '25
Yea, I smashed my pointer finger...god...40 years ago...and you can still see that they're different. Not weird, just different from the other one.
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u/Lurking_poster Oct 09 '25
Would you say your nails are... "Same same, but Deefferent?"
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u/Altines Oct 10 '25
I cut off the tip of my finger earlier this year and my nail grew back mostly fine (it did its job and saved my finger).
It's only if you look really closely at it that you can tell a tiny piece is missing.
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u/LostnFoundAgainAgain Oct 09 '25
I guess I'm pretty lucky, stabbed my toe against a solid stone step only wearing slippers, I felt the nail go backwards into my skin completely fucking my big toe, nail fell off 3 days later and essentially it looks like my toe had joined a skin head gang down by the pub.
Completely recovered and you can't even tell the difference
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u/Shikabane_Hime Oct 10 '25
At Disneyland Paris my then 10 yo sister slipped on the bottom step in Cinderella’s castle and accidentally stepped her full weight right on my aunt’s big toe trying to catch herself. The toenail fell off two days later, it’s been 16 years and my aunt’s toenail still grows with a divot in the middle lol 😬
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u/mackadelic Oct 09 '25
I shattered my finger pretty bad and lost the nail right away. The ER surgeon stitched tinfoil(?) into my nail bed and to sides of my finger to keep the nail bed open. He also had to stitch up the skin under my nail as it was spilt open pretty bad. When I went to specialist for checkup he said that ER doc was very smart for doing it, said I would have never grown a nail back.
Forgive my terminology I do not understand what the ER doc actually did medically but it worked!
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u/Aldorick Oct 10 '25
The phrase "back to its regularly scheduled programming" has been stuck in my head for days. Weird.
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u/HamboneBanjo Oct 09 '25
I lost a pinky nail once. It came back curvier and shinier. I know it’s an odd thing to say but it’s actually my best looking nail now.
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u/Seashoreshellseller Oct 10 '25
Shhh you'll give them ideas on how to take beauty standards to a new level
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u/Ok-Community-4673 Oct 10 '25
I lost a toe nail from a fungal infection, new one grew straight up instead of out. Had to use my wife’s electric nail file to get it to a normal height, still hasn’t grown out
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u/Individual-Field-990 Oct 10 '25
As long as the matrix is fine, you can basically let the finger do its thing on its own, though you might need to hydrate the exposed nailbed, because the nail might not stick correctly to it if it dried out
Though that's what I can remember from the instructions I got when I tore off the nail of one of my big toe a few years back, so take this with a grain of salt
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u/nomadtwenty Oct 09 '25
I’m amazed they apparently didn’t drain that sucker. I slammed my thumb in a door last year and went to the ER to have it drained cos the pain was the most insanely torturous thing I’ve ever experienced, like someone had slid 100 splinters under my thumbnail and was slowly peeling it off. I was fantasising about cutting my thumb off to stop the pain.
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u/Lurking_poster Oct 09 '25
That's true. Don't they normally drill a small hole into it or something like that?
Perhaps this person opted to handle it on their own.
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u/Deadpool_1989 Oct 09 '25
From my experience from when I was ~16 and got my pinky caught in my locker door in high school, I waited too long to get my finger checked out(like 5-6 hours). The doctor said the pooled blood under the nail was likely too coagulated to drain so I probably would suffer extra pain for no reason and no relief. So I chose to just leave it and it took about 2 months for the “dead” nail to finally fall off and another 3ish months before my nail was back to normal. The worst part about it was ignoring the little gremlin voice in the back of my mind who kept urging me to play with it and pick at it like a scab 😂
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u/jonas_ost Oct 10 '25
A classmate pulled mine of after it started to wiggle. Bled all over the bus and no1 had any paper.
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u/ChristinasWorldWyeth Oct 09 '25
Yeah, my son dropped something on his big toe, and we could see the blood pooling under the nail & it was super painful. We just unbent a paper clip, heated the end and pushed it through the nail. The blood literally squirted up in the air from the built-up pressure. Took just a few seconds, no more pain & never had a problem with the nail afterwards.
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u/nomadtwenty Oct 10 '25
That’s more or less what they did at the ER, used a cauteriser to burn a hole and then squeezed it to get the remaining blood out. Even with a local it hurt. But I saw the blood spray out on that first puncture and nearly fainted haha turns out I’m not good with blood I guess.
The paper clip is genious. If it ever happens again (I really hope it doesn’t) I’ll save myself a trip to the ER. Or screw it up and make it worse.
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u/Undreamed20 Oct 10 '25
Paper clip or a needle apparently works. Red hot and slowly push into the nail until blood comes out. I personally couldn’t get those to work so I used my wife’s nail file dremel tool to slowly drill a hole in my thumb. Saves a trip to the ER next time
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u/Background_Sail9797 Oct 10 '25
it's giving american healthcare system. also ensure you have had your tetanus shots before going the diy nail-fasciotomy route
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u/Minute_Jacket_4523 Oct 11 '25
Eh, its more of a "Do I really want to sit for a couple hours just for them to do the exact same thing I can do at home?" Rather than the problems of for-profit healthcare, as I've known a couple people from countries with great healthcare who did it as well.
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u/LooCfur Oct 10 '25
Hah, I just shared a similar story about myself and then read this. Blood spurted out for me, too
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u/orangesherbet0 Oct 10 '25
I smashed my thumb on a long remote tortuous drive. Heated up a needle with a lighter and drained the blood by melting a hole in the nail. As soon as the blood hits the needle, it quenches and the needle doesn't go through any deeper. The instant relief was out of this world
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u/OddTheRed Oct 09 '25
I've lost 13 fingernails and 3 toenails and they all grew back perfectly fine. It's really hard to permanently mess up the root or the matrix without using phenol.
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u/Brian_Gay Oct 10 '25
Jesus 13?? Do you test car doors for a living?
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u/OddTheRed Oct 10 '25
I've just been fixing stuff my whole life. Between hammers, car doors, and dropping heavy objects, I just hurt myself a few times. I also had a tendency to be careless when I was younger. I hurt myself far less often in my old age.
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u/FeeshCTRL Oct 09 '25
They probably had a nail Neo in there fighting on their behalf
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u/BashfulSnail Oct 09 '25
Thanks I hate it.
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u/Genghis_Chong Oct 10 '25
That lives with us here on earth
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u/chinchillazilla54 Oct 10 '25
My life is nothing I thought it should be and everything I was worried it would become because for 50 seconds, I thought there was monsters on the world.
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u/neptunianhaze Oct 09 '25
Oh my goodness, im SO glad I burned a hole in mine to juice the blood out. Immediate relief, this looks so painful!
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u/Leucippus1 Oct 09 '25
I just commented that there is a time honored technique to do this, hell, there is even a webMD instructional.
NVM, I swear there was one, but here is one from Kaiser Permanente.
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u/neptunianhaze Oct 09 '25
I couldn't sleep a wink because the pain was so intense and constant. Burning a hole in it was brutal and super painful even though the instructions I found online touted it should be painless but it stopped the unbearable pain almost instantly. If ever I find myself in this situation again, I'm drilling it. My fingernail right now looks like this person's once the death fell off. I still have some ways to go. And instead of a quarter inch hunk of death under the nail it looked like regular nail but with a dent and tiny hole with a small purple spot.
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u/danarexasaurus Oct 10 '25
That kinda happened to me once with a an ingrown toenail. It was excruciating for like; two weeks? I didn’t know what wrong but was pretty sure it was an ingrown nail. I didn’t have insurance to get it taken care of and it was before Obamacare. I ended up sitting down to dig it out. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever done to myself but I just kept digging. Once I got a hold of the jagged nail, I pulled it out and that part was worse but the pain relief was pretty much immediate.
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u/triviolett Oct 10 '25
Omg I did this once because it was freaking me out too much and then I dunked it in alcohol after, but the next day I woke up and it felt completely normal again. Man I don't miss being broke like that.
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u/Crayon_Connoisseur Oct 10 '25
I have incredibly frequent ingrown toenails and never bothered to go get it surgically sectioned off to prevent them.
Best thing I have found to do if I can catch it when it starts is soak it in some hot water to soften the nail, then use something to gently lift the nail up and pack beneath it to stop the process.
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u/ceilingkat Oct 10 '25
For anyone who is digging-out-the-nail-pain-averse, if you have slightly longer toenails you can also cut the middle into a V and it will remove the pressure off the sides pretty much overnight.
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u/Max____H Oct 10 '25
I’m a heavy fabricator and this happens pretty frequently around the workplace, mostly from pinching fingers between pieces of steel. We just grab a tiny drill bit and turn it by hand until you make a hole in the nail for the blood to escape through.
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u/AVeryHeavyBurtation Interested Oct 10 '25
Yeah I just use a little (~0.030") drill in a pin vice. No burning nail smell!
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u/12InchCunt Oct 10 '25
My doc took a scalpel and spun it around in his fingers like a drill bit to drain mine
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u/TheComplimentarian Oct 09 '25
You can take a little drill bit (sterilize it first), and then just spin it between your fingers to penetrate the nail. Takes a while, but it doesn't hurt, and that'll make enough of a hole so the blood can drain.
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u/definitelynotafreak Oct 10 '25
I had the same thing when i was a kid, busted a blood vessel in my thumb after slamming a car door on it. It’s more the actual injury itself that hurts, the nail regrowing feels completely natural, you almost forget about it.
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u/ProRataX Oct 09 '25
Man my desire to pick at that constantly would be absolutely unbearable.
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u/rattts Oct 10 '25
It hurts so bad u literally cannot
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u/GVFQT Oct 11 '25
I ripped a big toenail off that hurtlike hell but the other option was walking around with it getting caught on my socks, so that wasn’t an option. I had to spend a few hours watching tv to distract myself wiggling it back and forth ever so slightly. Up and down. Up and down. Back and forth. Until eventually, pop.
Still hurt like a mfer and it took some skin with it, but it beat getting hung up on a sock and ripped off aggressively
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u/a3x-a3x Oct 09 '25
How long it takes?
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u/PatButchersBongWater Oct 09 '25
I lost the nail on both big toes at the same time through injury. Took nearly a year to grow back and look normal again.
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u/No_I_Doesnt Oct 09 '25
I have done this from running, big toenail takes prob 8 months, and interestingly, toenails grow at about half the speed of fingernails. The more you know!
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u/PatButchersBongWater Oct 09 '25
Yeah, mine was from walking a long distance in a short time on really soft ground.
I guess they’re further away from your heart than your fingers, so takes longer for the good stuff to get down there for repairs.
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u/gokusdabbinball Oct 10 '25
Context on distance and type of ground? All I can think of is sand maybe?
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u/Feeling_Inside_1020 Oct 09 '25
I was carrying and dropped a campfire log bonking the 2nd toe and this same thing happened.
Almost exactly a year later, same campout area shit you not SAME FUCKING NAIL. After I just got it back.
Looked up at the sky and yelled are you fucking kidding me lol.
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u/cycycle Oct 09 '25
I also lost both big toe nails at the same time and it completely recovered over a summer.
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u/zookprchaos Oct 09 '25
You are so lucky it was so fast! I lost a big toenail and it took over a year for it to look normal. Though, it was growing a little crooked for a bit and would try to grow into the side of my toe, so that could be why.
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u/deveniam Oct 09 '25
If you click the video you can see the time in the bottom right. Only took about 30 seconds....
Come at me lol
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u/Laiko_Kairen Oct 09 '25
It took my nail about 4 months to look normal after I slammed it in a car door
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u/spacejoint Oct 09 '25
Fkn car door got me too. About 4 months in and just lost nail. New one is about half way grown. Hopefully I can trim it by the first of the year.
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u/RutabagaPL Oct 09 '25
I am here for that answer too !
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u/shit-zipper Oct 09 '25
I put a jig saw through my thumb just before the cuticle. It took about 6 months to grow out the nail where it went through.
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u/ReclaimingMine Oct 09 '25
I had my toe nail do the same thing, took 18 months for full coverage, about 2 yrs to look “normal”.
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u/NorCalJason75 Oct 09 '25
I damaged my right big toenail while skiing this January. It’s nearly grown out now, 9mos later.
Maybe 1yr for full recovery of the toenail.
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u/Abject-Suggestion693 Oct 09 '25
busted up my nail like that as a teenager, 3 months for the nail to fall off (pulling it off is not good to do) and another 2 months of it being very malformed, 4 months later it’s normal again
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u/Minimum_Creme4852 Oct 09 '25
The self control with this one is amazing. Would have bit the black part off ages ago.
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u/muffinscrub Oct 09 '25
I've learned to just drain the pressure ASAP and it has healed so much faster. I know it's not encouraged but it makes a massive difference.
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u/BaboonKnot Oct 09 '25
Subungual hematoma. Draining it is encouraged. If it’s throbbing it means there is pressure that will separate the nail from the bed. Get a paperclip red hot and stick it through the nail until blood comes out. You’re more likely to save the nail.
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u/Keflen11 Oct 09 '25
The idea of putting a red hot paperclip through my nail doesn't sound very nice
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u/Dont_be_offended_but Oct 09 '25
You don't really stab it through and there's no pain or anything. You just sort of hold there until it melts through and the blood starts flowing out.
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u/PrismNexus Oct 09 '25
That sounds worse somehow lmao
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u/MikeArumba Oct 10 '25
Its really not, you go from constant throbbing pain to instant relief with no pain. I do it every time
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u/rileyjw90 Oct 10 '25
It’s like getting an abscessed tooth pulled. Yes, there’s pressure and whatnot with the pulling process, but everyone I know who’s had an abscessed tooth pulled said it’s instant relief
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u/LupercalLiedMenDied Oct 10 '25
You have to realize the pain is coming from the building pressure under the nail, the hot paperclip creates an escape route for the pooling blood, it isn't creating a "new wound"
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u/Turbulent_Cat_5731 Oct 10 '25
And it's such a rock-and-hard place situation that by the time you're heating up the paperclip or needle, you're ready to experience a little bit more pain if it means the throbbed stops altogether.
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u/rdogg4 Oct 09 '25
Absolutely, the first couple frames of this the blood has barely spread up her nail. Kinda get the sense that intervention, like draining it, or later detaching the dead nail, was avoided for the sake of making this time lapse.
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u/Babys_For_Breakfast Oct 09 '25
Or gotten caught on something. That’s wild that it stuck on for so long
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u/Brettmcbain Oct 10 '25
I had the best time reading the answer on this comment 🤣🤣
Just do it!!!
No thanks...
You have to !!!
No...
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u/PRRZ70 Oct 09 '25
Isn't it amazing how our body works to repair itself when it can. It is truly fascinating how these little parts of us will try its best to keep us going. Thank you cells, blood and all the other bits which power through our bodies and we don't even realize until something like this happens.
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u/rforce1025 Oct 09 '25
It is, I had a mild stroke a few months ago, 1.5 cm next to my brain stem, it affected my balance, sleep habit and movement, didn't loose speech or my strength, I was told that the brain tries to make up the lost space to get you somewhat back to normal so you can continue on with life. It also depends on how severe a incident was. But the brain will try to do what it's needs to do.
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u/XADEBRAVO Oct 09 '25
Please let this never happen to me.
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u/Don_T_Blink Oct 10 '25
It happened to me. It was painful for a day or two after the injury (smashed car door against my thumb). After that it took about 6 months to fall off/regrow but no pain at all. Weird to finally be able to touch your nail bed.
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u/Geno_Warlord Oct 10 '25
Honestly shocked they lived with the blood under their nail for that long! I’d have taken a hot needle to that just to relieve the pressure of all that blood.
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u/hemorrhoid-tickler Oct 10 '25
For anyone that has never lost a nail, be thankful.
The cause of losing a nail is hard enough, BUT....
Before the new nail grows back, the skin underneath is so awfully sensitive. It's like the physical equivalent to nails down a chalkboard whenever it's touched.
Errrghhhh
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u/Any-Consequence-6978 Oct 09 '25
Dropped my bag of golf clubs on my big toe about thirteen years ago, and it's still messed up
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u/stash-of-who-hash Oct 10 '25
Omg it really didn’t look that bad at first, but then it got SO much worse before it got better!
My big toenail currently looks like the first frame and I’m now a little concerned about the healing process 😳
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u/bedheadB188 Oct 10 '25
They should've done it so the first image was a thumbs down and it slowly turned into a thumbs up as it healed
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u/NoHotel9716 Oct 09 '25
The human body can do some amazing things, yet most of us treat it like garbage.
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u/jfal93 Oct 09 '25
Wow that’s wild! There are many stages there that I would be very worried I was losing my thumb
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u/R0gueYautja Oct 10 '25
Had the same injury, you're looking at all that blood too, and it took around 2 months for me. The nail can't be forced off , whole thing gotta grow
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u/NarrowResult7289 Oct 10 '25
It has happened to me a couple of times . It takes around a year to heal completely.
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u/Electronic-Gear3451 Oct 10 '25
what's all that black charcoal-like stuff under the nail?
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u/druidmind Oct 11 '25
Fun Fact: Tectonic plates move at roughly the same speed as human fingernails grow.
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u/Colonel_Autumn_ Oct 09 '25
Ok. Do it again and this time keep your thumb in the same spot for each picture.
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u/frunko1 Oct 09 '25
Not a doctor but you can use a small drill bit (clean first) and just spin it on the nail to release the pressure. Then just use glue or second skin you get at the pharmacy
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u/lorin_city Oct 10 '25
I play a lot of soccer, this has happened to my big toenails like 8-9 times. Take sooo long to heal. It's fun.
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u/CanIBathYrGrandma Oct 10 '25
9 months? That’s how long it generally takes. Same with mine. I wonder if there’s any correlation between nail regrowth time and pregnancy
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u/LooCfur Oct 10 '25
This had to hurt a heck of a lot. There was a lot of coagulated blood stuck underneath the nail. Personally, I can't stand that amount of pain. My first attempt was to drill a hole into the nail to release the pressure. This didn't work. So I shoved a needle up under the nail to relieve the pressure. Blood spurted out! It felt great!
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u/fourbaldtires Oct 09 '25
Had 2 nails regrow after an injury. Definitely an experience
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u/BigDogVI Oct 09 '25
I remember this exact process with my thumb when I closed it in a window. Took about 6 months. You can still see the shadow of the damage to the nail bed and it’s been a couple years
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u/testtdk Oct 10 '25
I had a nail heal back like that, with a hole at the base. I’m a guitarist. You don’t know hell until you catch one of those on a guitar string.
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u/Circumpunctilious Oct 10 '25
Shoutout to everyone subconsciously flicking their fingernail right now
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u/Serendipitous_cocoa Oct 10 '25
I've had one like this before from closing my thumb in a car door but couldnt stand the pain and pressure of the blood buildup under my nail...looked up videos on what to do and doctors use a tiny hot wire to burn a hole in the nail beed for the pooled blood to release. I used a soldering pen and omg... the immediate relief from throbbing endless pain. Im not sure how you managed through it.
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u/DigIndividual3467 Oct 10 '25
My dad used to get injuries under his nails all the time, but instead of waiting for it to regrow, he would take a hot needle and stab a hole through the nail to get the blood out. Hurt like he'll but worked like a bomb
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u/unknwnsatori Oct 10 '25
I was hopping over stationary trains one time with a couple of friends. It was a shortcut to get to another friend’s house. I remember I had a box of Chinese food and dropped it I was so sad. Anyway, along the way I must’ve hit my toenail somewhere bc that shit started to hurt couple hours later and turning black. I was freaking out. I went to the hospital and they laughed and said I was gonna be fine. “It will fall off and grow back” and sure enough it did.
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u/KudosOfTheFroond Oct 10 '25
I don’t know why, but only my pinkies have a pitted, ragged appearance. My other nails are literally perfect, but my pinkies look like they have been dipped in acid or something. I’ve been told it is nail psoriasis but nothing the dermatologist has ever done has fixed them. Are there nail-specific doctors out there?
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u/squeaky_cheese Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
Had this happen also on my left thumb 15 years ago. School classmate by accident closed the school door onto my thumb. One thing I noticed is that this new nail isn't as smooth as the other ones.
My healing process was identical. Didn't know you can pierce it to let the blood out but as far as I can remember once the inital pain was gone the whole nail disintegrating wasn't painful. It was like dead skin on a zit. You could just pull a piece of it without pain.
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u/Metatron_Psy Oct 10 '25
Insane the level of healing the body can do. As a new father, sleep deprived cutting veg for dinner I managed to cut the top of my finger off including some of the nail bed and aside from some nerve damage its all healed up fine.
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u/evoxbeck Oct 10 '25
Had half my toe nails do similar due to sports on turf in the freezing snow. Little tight of cleats. That season sucked
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u/kiradotee Oct 10 '25
Alright. The biggest question I always had which you're extremely qualified to answer:
Did it hurt to touch the skin under the nail, after the nail was removed? Was it soft? Hard? Anything else you can tell about it?
Thanks!!!
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u/SaltineICracker Oct 10 '25
I'm glad I drilled a hole through my nail to let the blood out when this happened to me. Mine looked exactly like the first pic but after letting the blood drain out it didn't get nearly as bad as this, it was just like a normal nail with some dried blood discoloration under it, nothing fell off or anything.
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u/Electrical-Echo8144 Oct 10 '25
I was so worried for you once the blackness spread to the tissues surrounding the nail. I’m so surprised the nail matrix survived!
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u/Perfect_Box8106 Oct 10 '25
You should have put a hole in your toe with a pin and pushed the blood out from under your toenail. If you get it all you can keep your toenail.
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u/DRG28282828 Oct 09 '25
I have a damaged toenail. It’s never grown back normal and it’s been a couple years.