Friday, July 20, 2012

Peeling Nails

Ok, this was going to be my third blog post, but this problem has gotten really bad on me, so unfortunately I am taking a few days off of painting to start this. Therefor I have bumped this one up and will wait to post the other when I have some new pictures. So I have always had this problem with peeling nails ever since I was little. I contribute it mostly to the fact that I bit my nails (some times to bleeding) till I was probably in high school. So sometimes my nails are awesome, long, strong, and unbreaskable, but other times they break as easily as a dry twig. According to the Langone Medical Center at NYU, this affects one-fifth of the population, and mostly women... Great... Well at least I am not alone with annoying trouble. What to do? Well apparently there are two main categories of brittle nails: lack of moisture which equals dry and brittle, or too much moisture which equals soft and brittle... (you would think that if they turn brittle from lack of moisture, lots of moisture would be fine, but it's not... It confuses me too) Any ways, now to determine what my problem is. Now I already wear gloves when doing the dishes (which is one of the things suggested) so I am thinking the to much moisture is not my problem. But I am one of those people who was their hands all the time... So I don't know what my culprit is. Well from all my reasurch online something I find funny is that the ways to fix peeling nails are the same solutions no matter why yours are brittle. Today (well actually yesterday since I wrote this yesterday morning, but didn't get it posted until today because of distractions) I am starting to fix my problem, and you all get they joy of following along! The main ways to fix this problem that I have found are: wear gloves when doing dishes (which I do, but do I need to when I bathe my kids? Because that would be strange), use a glass nail file and or buffer after filing to smooth and seal the edges (this too I already do, or at least the glass nail file. I got hooked on them by one of my old co-workers a number of years ago, and haven't used any thing else since), soak you nails in olive or vegetable oil daily (now the one thing I have not found is how long to soak them, so I am guessing just a few minutes. This would be good while watching tv), apply olive oil or patroleum jelly to nails and cuticles before baithing (apparently the warm water helps the nails to absorb the moisture), use a lactic or urea based moisturizer on your nails after water exposure (this would be good since I am a big hand washer, my only thing is I don't know how hard it will be to find these... Ok doing a search led me to this 'livestrong' webiste that tells you a number of readily available lotions that contain these items. (I will post a link at the end). Luckily the lotions I have contain these, so I don't have to buy a new one! Starting tonight I will be trying to heal my nails, I know it will take more than a few days, but I am not going to polish for a few day (lord give me strength) as this is another thing they say to do. But come Sunday (or Saturday night) you better believe I will be doing my nails! Post to follow on how I think this works! As mentioned here is the link to the website that talks about which lotions are good for these ingredients. http://www.livestrong.com/article/173251-creams-that-contain-lactic-acid-or-salicylic-acid-urea/

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for doing this post! My nails have always peeled and seem to break very easily! It seems that no matter what I do, they still peel! I'm looking forward to hearing if these things make a difference for you!

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