It weirded me out a bit, if I'm being honest with you. Because I hadn't smashed my thumb or anything like unto it, y'know? I hadn't earned it.
Initially, I thought it was, perhaps, a thickening of the nail, so I grabbed a nail file, and I sanded it down.
That. Was. A giant mistake. And rather painful...
As it turns out, it wasn't a thickening of the middle part of my nail at all, but the bump came from underneath the nail itself. Ergo, I essentially filed my nail to almost skin-level down there by the cuticle. (If you don't understand how that feels, go ahead and try doing what I did. But really: DON'T TRY IT. Just take my word for it that it was painful, okay?)
Aaaanyway, I was hanging out with Jami one afternoon (when we were working on my dining room set) and I showed her my wonky nail, and she was kinda freaked out by it and encouraged me to go to the doctor about it.
So I did.
I sought medical help over my wonky thumbnail. And I sat in that doctor's office for the better part of 40 minutes while the PA poured of a medical book or two, trying to figure out what the what was going on with my right thumb.
My thumbnail problem was that weird, folks.
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| I took this picture a few days after visiting the doc. |
When he figured out what it was, he came in to tell me about it.
It's called median nail dystrophy, folks, and there is no known cause. It only happens on the thumb nails, although sometimes it's bilateral. (Sooo grateful it's just my right thumb, I have to say.) Also, sometimes it happens on the big toenails. (Once again, I'm thrilled it skipped my toes altogether.) Starting at the cuticle, right in the middle, the nail either grows out with a bump, or else it starts splitting. And sometimes when it splits, it looks like a fir tree. There's no cure for it; it just grows out.
I was super bummed, because I'm vain when it comes to my nails, I suppose. I went home and googled "median nail dystrophy" and read up on it; in addition to what the PA said, I discovered that when it grows out, there's no exact time table. Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes it takes years.
Then I went ahead and looked at the google images of MND, and I felt sick and kind of depressed. Because the "thumb cracking to look like a fir tree" was simultaneously accurate and inaccurate. Some of those pictures were gross, and I kept thinking I'd have to cover my thumb with BandAids until the nastiness grew out, you know?
Also, I (maybe, a little bit) started praying, since my nails grow fast, that the wonk might not, in fact, last years.
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| Shortly after I visited the doctor, my nail started to crack. |
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| It's lovely, isn't it? |
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| More cracking. |
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| This picture was titled "March 9" |
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| And this one was titled "End of March" |
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| On April Fools Day, it hit me that the wonk was, in fact, growing out!! |
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| Mid-April... |
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| April 17th |
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| Yesterday |
I can't tell you how happy I am that this...median nail dystrophy...is leaving my body. THE WONK IS ALMOST GONE!
*I totally wasn't going to post anything about this, because YUCK. But now that it's almost gone (yay, hooray!), I'm less sensitive about it. And also: I kind of want to remember this, in case it ever comes back (heaven forbid!).
I hope that I haven't grossed any of you out too badly. I also hope that median nail dystrophy never graces any of your thumbs...
