Toe nail injury - advice please

kayleigh_b69

7 weeks ago I had an accident and pulled a sofa back onto my big toe - this resulted in my nail being lifted from my toe but still attached at part of the cuticle. At A&E they were great and used for pets to place the nail back in order to protect the nailbed - they advised the nail would either re-attach or fall off, I needed to keep it clean and dry and dress with steri-strips and dressings daily.

I have been doing this every day and the nail doesn't appear to be doing either - it is lifting off the nail bed daily when I am taking the strips off to replace and it doesn't look like a new nail is growing and it definitely isn't re-attaching.

I was at the doctors 3 weeks ago as it had a bit of puss so was given antibiotics in case it was an infection brewing - the doc advised they would always rather save a nail so to keep on as I was and it all looked ok.

So my question is how long will this take to heal ? Is there anything I can do to help it along the way ? Does the old nail need to come off before a new one starts to grow ?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - I can attach pics if anyone is in desperate need to see 🙈

unforeseen

I would ask your GP to refer you to a podiatrist. At least that way an expert can assess it.

theoretica

Nais don't grow any faster when they are damaged - it will be growing as slowly as your toe nails usually grow, which is usually something like 1.5mm a month. It may well take a year or more before you have a complete new nail grown out.

keithdc

All you can do is wait- aim is to keep dry and clean.

Stop changing steri-strips every day- leave them on until they fall off. Fine to change outer dressing daily (but no real need).

No need for podiatrist.

Gloomendoom

I ripped one of my toenails off on a rock while on holiday last year. I was in an out of the way place and had to remove it completely myself. I cleaned it and bathed it in salt water every day until it scabbed over.

It took probably six months before it grew back properly. It's a slow process.

elsien

I did exactly the same thing with my big toe nail and a settee. It did drop off eventually but it was flapping around for a while first - I may have given it a helping hand which I wouldn't recommend.
Then I was left for nail less for a long time while the new one grew in properly. Don't remember how long it took though, sorry.

gettingtheresometime

Lost my left big toe nail twice now due to walking extreme lengths.

Didn't hurt when the nail eventually came off but took about 6 months to fully grow back

kayleigh_b69

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I ripped one of my toenails off on a rock while on holiday last year. I was in an out of the way place and had to remove it completely myself. I cleaned it and bathed it in salt water every day until it scabbed over.

It took probably six months before it grew back properly. It's a slow process.

It's so nice in a strange kind of way that someone else has done the same thing - I've made my husband move the sofa since ��
I'm impatient so maybe I'm expecting miracles