Secrets that your nails can reveal about your health

You know it is said that a good doctor starts observing the patient from the moment he walks in the door and makes many deductions about the patient's health just by looking at them. Sherlock holmes isn't the only one who can notice someone's nails and assess their story, we can too, and by the end of this article, you'll know enough to comment on the health of a person just by looking at their nails too.

In many diseases, the appearance of our nails changes, there might be various kinds of lines, depressions, various shapes and no change is random, each one tells a story, you just need to understand the story. Here are some of the nail appearances and what disease they predict.

Lines over nails

• Horizontal ridges (Beau's lines)

  • Sometimes when there is a very severe disease, the nail stops growing as the body becomes busy fighting the disease. Later when you're cured and nail starts growing again, a horizontal ridge develops. So these can later tell that you once had a disease and can even be used to calculate how long ago it was (Hand nails get renewed every 3 months, toe nails every 6 months, we can see the position of the line and find out how long ago this person was sick). Pretty neat trick, won't you say. Battle scars anyone?

• Horizontal lines (Muehrcke's lines)

  • When there is less protein in the body, maybe you're eating less or your kidneys filtering out more, Narrow white horizontal lines develop. If this happens, see a doctor so they can find out why your protein is inadequate.

• Small red vertical lines (Splinter haemorrhages)

  • There may be small vertical red lines, like small spots of bleeding under the nails, there could be many causes but most likely it is due to an injury over your nails or a disease where bacteria have attacked your heart called Infective Endocarditis.

Color changes

• Whitish coloration (Leuconychia)

  • If your nails appear white or have areas of white spots, it may indicate a vitamin deficiency or less protein most likely because your liver can't work properly.

• Half white half brown coloration (Lindsay's nails)

  • If the beginning of your nails is white but towards the end they get red or brown, it may indicate your kidneys are in trouble.

• Thick Yellow/Brown color (Onychomycosis)

  • Your nails may feel very very thick and yellowish or brownish, dirty, this might indicate that a fungus has made your nails it's home.

• Yellow nails

  • If your nails appear normal, but yellowish, along with yellow coloration over other parts of your body, it indicates jaundice.

  • If your nails appear curved, yellowish, thick, there is swelling in other parts of the body, Your lungs may be in trouble . This condition is called Yellow nail syndrome.

Shape changes

• Finger tips expanded like drumsticks (Clubbing)

  • If you feel the ends of your fingers are getting thicker and expanding, this is called clubbing. A doctor can accurately assess if it's clubbing or not. There are many causes of clubbing, diseases of your lungs, heart, liver, intestine, thyroid. A doctor will help you in finding out which one.

• Spoon shaped nails (Koilonychia)

  • In iron deficiency anemia, when our body is very low on it's iron stores, the nails tend to become spoon shaped. Increase your intake of iron rich foods.

• Reddish color around the base of nails (Nail fold telangiectasia)

  • Sometimes it would appear like the area around the base of your nails is reddish and full of blood, this happens due to expansion of the tubes that carry blood in your fingers, and this indicates a disease like SLE, Systemic sclerosis, Dermatomyositis. A doctor will be able to narrow down which one and give you more information about it

• Nail separating from nail bed (Onycholysis)

  • There can be many causes of your nail separating from the nail bed, infections by fungus, skin diseases, injury to the nails, thyroid disease, even an antibiotic - tetracycline will lead to your nails separating from nail bed whenever you're in sunlight.

• Small pits over the nails

  • These usually happen in many skin diseases like psoriasis, eczema, lichen planus and others

If you have or someone you know has one of these signs, don't worry, now you have an idea which organ may be affected, consult a doctor and they will help you in proper diagnosis and treatment. It's important to see a good doctor as some diseases can be very minor and some may be life threatening and if even 1 reader notices these changes in their nails and visits a doctor before the disease gets serious, they'll get treated and we here at MyHealthClub would celebrate that our objective was fulfilled. Stay smiling, stay happy.