What should I do about my toenail?

Question:I do pointe 4 hours a week and about a month ago, my big toenail started really hurting. The nail felt like their was a lot of pressure on it but as far as appearance goes, it looked fine.

About a week after that, I got this huge dark purple bruise that covered the entire right half of the nail. At that point, my nail didn't hurt anymore, so I continued doing pointe. When I took off my pointe shoes after my 2nd class with the bruise, my toe was hurting really bad and there was a lot of blood seeping out from under the nail. I decided to tough it out and continue with class the next day and the same thing happened.

After that second class, I, my instructor and my mom all decided that I should take a break from pointe to let my nail heal. It's been a week since then and now almost all of my nail is detatched from my toe. The only part that is still attached is the cuticle and the left edge (the side that wasn't bruised).

Should I remove the nail? If so, how?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I do pointe 4 hours a week and about a month ago, my big toenail started really hurting. The nail felt like their was a lot of pressure on it but as far as appearance goes, it looked fine.

About a week after that, I got this huge dark purple bruise that covered the entire right half of the nail. At that point, my nail didn't hurt anymore, so I continued doing pointe. When I took off my pointe shoes after my 2nd class with the bruise, my toe was hurting really bad and there was a lot of blood seeping out from under the nail. I decided to tough it out and continue with class the next day and the same thing happened.

After that second class, I, my instructor and my mom all decided that I should take a break from pointe to let my nail heal. It's been a week since then and now almost all of my nail is detatched from my toe. The only part that is still attached is the cuticle and the left edge (the side that wasn't bruised).

Should I remove the nail? If so, how?

I'd advise leaving it alone and wait till the old nail falls off by itself. From your description, it will only be a couple of days. For now, secure it to your toe with a bandaid so you don't tear it off accidentally. I had a similar thing happen to my finger nail (injury). You will get a new nail growing pretty soon. It will be not smooth at first, but in a few weeks when it grows out it will be normal.

Many ballerinas lose their toe nails at some time. It is painful. I lost my big toe nail myself, not from dancing, but from a bike accident when I was young. I would not remove it yourself. It will probably fall off on its own. If you have a doctor, go see them and they will either take it off or tell you to keep it clean and wrapped securely. It will take a couple months for your new nail to grow out.

It will fall off it's self and will grow back fine.
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/sma/sma_t...
follow this link it will tell you more.

There's no really good way to remove the nail without it hurting quite a bit. The best way I can think of to do it yourself with relatively little pain is to get a smooth flat piece of plastic (or metal), slide it under the nail, and then use an Xacto knife to cut around the dead part from the top. Of course, the plastic would let you do this without cutting into the skin underneath. You could coat the plastic with an antibiotic ointment that contains lidocaine, which will dull the pain.

But I can't really see much advantage to removing it, except that it would let the area dry out and be less prone to infection. But you should be fine anyways, as long as you clean it well with antiseptic, and get some antibiotic ointment under the nail (and maybe antifungal cream as well, since it's your foot, and these injuries can leave you vulnerable to toenail fungus... ask a doctor about this).

Also, not having a loose nail might let you return to ballet faster, since a long unattached nail will just move around and make things worse if you try to dance on it again. And the exposed skin under the nail should become less sensitive once it's been dry and out in the open for a few days.

ooooo gross, just take a toe nail clipper and trim it back a notch.
Give up the ballet your toes are more important than pointe or whatever its called.
GAD... why do you torture yourself so. my god girl isn't there some else you can take up that won't deform you anymore?

Can't tell you what to do now.

Next time though there's an old carpenter's trick you might want to try when you feel the pressure building.

Heat a thin needle red hot. Carefully drive the needle directly through the nail in the area of the blood bruise - believe me it looks worse than it is.

If you are careful you can relieve the pressure and won't feel a thing. In fact I've seen blood spurt up as much as an inch when the pressure was relieved and the guy, who had turned his face away, didn't feel a thing.

Well the same problem happened to me with my big right toenail on my right foot. Well, I guess it happened to me because of playing soccer. The nail started to hurt a lot at first and I would kind of ignore it, but then it turned purple. I think you should leave it and continue to do other things. At some point, the nail will come off on its own. Don't worry about it when it's off, as usual, the nail will grow.

Good luck! It really is no big deal, don't let things like that stop you from your normal routines.

=D

This happened to a friend of mine who does a lot of running. He might run ten miles and have two of three of his two nails fall off. It sounds like you've bruised your nail. I would probably let it fall off on its own unless its really bothering you. If its really a problem that its hanging off, I suggest you see your doctor.