Thumb Fracture 10 Weeks Ago, Nail Now Falling Off

[Deleted User]

About ten weeks ago I had an open fracture to my thumb, Crush injury.  Had it all treated (surgery).  Now my thumb nail bed is going misshapen and my thumb nail is peeling away from my thumb.  There has been bruising under the thumb nail but it seemed to be healing but the last week or so there has been some discolouration and now the nail is obviously lifting from the nail bed.  Should I do anything?  Its a bit uncomfortable but only mildly so (no sign of infection).The problem is, the bit of my nail near the cuticle is not misscoloured or showing signs of nail lifting so I am wondering how to best deal with it.  Never had this happen before and don't know if I am going to be walking around with 2/3 of my nail off my hand, 1/3 still firmly attached lol looking like I have some dreaded disease lol.  I expected nail peeling off to happen a lot earlier if it was going to happen.

Wonder if anyone has ever had anything like this happen?  Should I do anything?  I can't go to my GP surgery, they have no GP (don't ask! Its supposed to be being resolved) and its a rather minor issue really..

Toothsmith

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/nail-problems/

Traumatic injuries are mentioned a few lines down. 

If this doesn't answer your questions, or reassure you, then you should consult your GP 

[Deleted User]

Thank you, I read this some time ago.  I've found that most sites concentrate on diagnosis and causes, not how to deal with it in real life terms safely. As I have already explained our GP surgery is practically shut down and while I don't want to do the wrong thing with the nail peeling, I also am not going to risk covid going to a high risk area to ask probably stupid questions.  I was hoping someone on here might have real life experience of the problem. I am high risk because of a few health conditions so self isolating in a level 4 area..

Floss

It's quite common - I had both big toes damaged after skiing in poorly-fitting boots and both nails came off afterwards (several times). I also have the same recurrent but lessening problem on a little toe after it was broken by having a solid oak door dropped onto it.

It is the nail bed which is now slowly healing after your injury. It will likely keep happening for some time. To protect it from any catching or you from undue comments on its appearance,  buy/make a couple of thumb stalls to hide it.

ETA - you could trim it down to where it is attached with clean scissors (dunk in just-boiled water) or ask a family member to do so. I pulledmydead nails off, IIRC it didn't hurt but I was always a scab-picker so not too squeamish to try it!