One day a male member posted something on our WhatsApp platform commenting on the lack of wives who, these days, would do everything: cooking, shopping, cleaning, taking care of kids, etc. He and his friends were fed up with house maids; disappointing, troublesome housemaids. Indeed, wives are no longer like Eve. Many of them have impeccable finger nails – manicured, polished and designed, as well as baby-soft palms. Finger nails and fine palms make the hands attractive. People do their nails and hands for dates, you see the hands a lot at the table; we gesticulate with the hands, we hold hands. The hands certainly have romantic powers.
Now the health of the hands and finger nails is not the same thing as the look of the hands and finger nails. In fact, the most useful hands may have rough palms and chipped finger nails and the most useless hands may have soft palms and beautiful nails. My platform friend, like most traditional men, would be tossed between the choice of their wives having worked hands that do chores or worked on hands that beauticians have conditioned to function only as instruments of handshakes and romance.
Many women of our times are possibly having it both ways. They know how to use their hands to do house chores and office work as well as how to keep the nails and hands looking good enough, if not beautiful. Many use fake nails (acrylic nails) for occasions.
There are a few nail conditions that we can guard against. Sometimes nails break without significant trauma on them; nails split, soften and chip off easily looking rough and unkempt; nails have lines and ridges, etc. Nutritional deficiency is certainly a cause of weak and defective nails. If your diet is low in protein, iron, biotin (vitamin H) calcium, zinc, vitamin A, or vitamin C, such a deficiency can reflect in the look of the nails. The term onychoschizia includes weakening, thinning, softening, and splitting of nails. It may be work related for those who clean and have their nails constantly wet or it may be due to nutritional deficiency. Onycholysis is painless detachment of the nail from the nail. It is caused by fungus, trauma, and other factors. Some disease conditions such as anemia and kidney and thyroid disorders affect the health of the nails.
The nail plates are generated by cells in the nail matrix at the origin or root of the nail plates (the region under the cuticle). The matrix and the nail plate it forms sit on the nail bed, which like normal tissues, has blood vessels and nerves and tissue fluid called lymph. If the matrix cells are not healthy, they turn out defective looking nails, such as nails that have ridges. Skin conditions such as dry skin and eczema have been blamed for nails formed with ridges. Fungus species invade the nail and can stubbornly colonize the matrix and nail bed. They cause deformation and discoloration of the nail. The affected nail plate must be removed clinically before applying topical antifungal medication. The antifungal creams and ointments you can obtain from your pharmacy work well if they are applied after scraping off the nail. The medication can be barred from effectively killing fungus in the living cells by the hardened dead nail that covers the cells, if the nail is not first removed. If you do this yourself, you must be careful not to spread the infection with the scrapings and not to wound the nail bed. For example, try scraping off the dead nail in water with 10% bleach in a bowl. Dry with a sterile wipe and then spread the antifungal agent on the nail bed and continue to keep the nail bed in contact with antifungal agent. You can cover the nail for a few weeks with a protectively finger splint sold at your pharmacy. Any damaged nail bed can heal within a few weeks but nails take a few months to fully regenerate. The ability of nails to regenerate depends on a functional matrix. If the matrix is destroyed by chronic fungal infection, the nail cannot regenerate.
For people who do wet jobs frequently, a coating of nail hardener and wearing of powdered (dry) gloves can help to preserve the nails.
Using coloured nail polish chronically and other factors can cause yellowing or discoloured nails. To whiten the nails, a mixture of 3% hydrogen peroxide (bleach) and baking soda in a paste may be spread on the nails for a few minutes and then rinsed off. This may be done repeatedly after a few months interval.
The nails are a reflection of how well we take care of ourselves, a social signal, therefore we should take good care of our nails.
Dr. Theresa Adebola John is a lecturer at Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM) and an affiliated researcher at the College of Medicine, University of Tennessee, Memphis. For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 08160944635
