Almost every one of us has encountered such a small nuisance as a hangnail near a nail. However, not everyone knows that they only seem harmless. In addition to the fact that hangnails on the fingers create discomfort and look unsightly, they can become very inflamed and cause pain, and in the future they can break out. In addition, epidemiological data confirm that even through a small wound a dangerous infection can enter the body.
The reasons for the appearance of hangnails on the fingers can be very different. Let's look at the most common ones.
When cleaning or washing dishes, it is very rare for anyone to protect their hands with rubber gloves. And in vain. The skin becomes very dry due to the effects of household chemicals. And the main risk factor for the appearance of hangnails is skin with roughened nail folds.
A poorly done manicure can also cause hangnails to appear on your fingers. This happens when a master who does not have sufficient experience injures the skin near the nail. Although if you don’t do a manicure and don’t take care of your nails at all, you can find the same problem.
Very often you can notice hangnails on the fingers of a child who has only recently been born. This is due to postpartum dryness of the epidermis.
Another common cause of this pathology is the bad habit of biting nails.
The reason can be much more serious - hangnails arise as a result of a dermatological disease, the focus of which is located near the nail fold.
A significant factor in the pathogenesis of the development of the disease, as a result of which the skin becomes very dry, are atopic dermatitis, eczema and others.
The formation of hangnails can be associated with dysbiosis, disruption of the functioning of any organs, or a deficiency of microelements ( gland and calcium) and vitamins A, E, B2 and nicotinic acid.
The main mistake that many people make when a hangnail appears is tearing it off. Such actions are dangerous because this place will become inflamed and cause pain; a secondary infection may occur, which is fraught with serious consequences and complications: paronychia and felon.
Paronychia is a purulent inflammation of the cushion near the nail. In severe cases, inflammation can lead to nail deformation or peeling. If the disease is mild, paronychia can be treated with medication and various procedures, but in advanced cases, surgical treatment cannot be avoided. Paronychia is characterized by infiltration or suppuration, a local increase in temperature. Then the patient may complain of a tugging pain. Pus may ooze from the wound. When the process can be brought under control and the treatment produces results, you may notice the appearance of cavities or a disturbance in the shape of the nail.
Panaritium is a purulent inflammation of the fingers. Typically, staphylococcal infection plays a major role in infection. Complications of this disease are extremely dangerous, including sepsis. With panaritium, severe pain, swelling, and increased temperature appear at the site of inflammation. In the most difficult cases, there is a significant increase in body temperature and severe intoxication. In severe forms, the prognosis may be unfavorable regarding further restoration of the functioning of the fingers.
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There is usually no need for any specialized diagnostics. When, with proper care, hangnails appear on your hands again and again, you need to consult a specialist. An experienced dermatologist, armed with the results of additional tests (biochemical blood test, analysis of microelements, analysis of dysbacteriosis), will be able to establish the true cause of the development of this pathology.
In case of vitamin deficiency, complex therapy for hangnails is carried out, which will include physiotherapeutic procedures (most often, local darsonvalization) and taking vitamin preparations.
If you notice a hangnail on your finger, the best solution is to cover the area with a band-aid and cut it off at home. As a last resort, you can carefully cut off the skin with nail scissors, and then treat the wound with any antiseptic (hydrogen peroxide, chloramphenicol).
Before removing the hangnail, soak your fingers in warm water for a few minutes. Then the skin will have time to steam and it will be easier to remove the hangnail without consequences.
If, after removing a hangnail, the skin begins to become inflamed, you can resort to using deperzolone, oxycort, geocortone, or another similar topical antibiotic.
There is no doubt that the best way to fight is prevention. If hangnails do appear, folk treatment offers many recipes.
The simplest and most effective means of treating hangnails on the hands are baths. Preparing a bath is very simple, and it also takes excellent care of the skin of your hands and nails. Any warm vegetable oil is suitable for the bath, but olive oil is ideal. The bath can be done as often as you like, even every day. If hangnails have already appeared, you need to add regular soda to the bath. For prevention, you can take baths with sea salt and the addition of essential oils, for example, orange and tea tree. All baths - oil, soda, salt - will help in the fight against hangnails. You can alternate different baths, but do them regularly.
If there is slight inflammation, hot pepper will help. It is cleaned of stems and seeds, and vodka is poured into the pepper itself. A finger with a hangnail is dipped in pepper so that a small amount of vodka remains in the pepper, and a bandage is made. It is better to leave the bandage on all night. If the wound still hurts because of it, then the bandage should be kept on as long as possible.
Heat cocoa butter and honey mixed in equal proportions in a water bath and apply to your hands.
You can make beer compresses: apply cotton wool previously soaked in heated beer.
If you lubricate your fingers with sea buckthorn oil or rosehip oil, then the wounds will heal quickly, and the skin near the nail plate will soften.
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To make hangnails on your fingers heal faster, apply a compress of crushed fresh chicory leaves to the wound twice a day. The compress is bandaged and left for a while.
Bandages are also made from shredded wheat. It is applied to the wounds, covered with a cabbage leaf, and then bandaged. This bandage is done twice a day.
Indoor plants can also help deal with hangnails. For example, Kalanchoe juice is famous for its antiseptic properties and ability to relieve inflammation. Thanks to the use of Kalanchoe, hangnails will quickly heal, and your hands will look much more attractive.
Women whose skin vessels are located close to the surface and male hormones in excess have rough cuticles. If you cut it deeply, the cuticle will give a torn edge, which can cause hangnails later. Then it is better to cut it off not completely.
Be careful with the tools you use to perform a manicure. If the tool becomes dull, the cuticle will not be cut, but will be torn off - and, as a result, burrs will appear.
The best prevention is careful and regular skin care:
The appearance of a hangnail not only spoils the appearance of the hands, but also interferes with the performance of everyday actions, clinging to everything that comes across - gloves, tights and other clothing. And if it tears the adjacent skin, then a big problem is just around the corner. However, to forget about hangnails on your hands forever, you just need to be patient and don’t forget about regular skin care, proper nutrition and protecting your hands from contact with household chemicals.
Often, hangnails on the fingers are not only a cosmetic defect, but also a medical problem, since their constant appearance may indicate problems in the body.
There are also cases when the only reason for the detachment of the epidermis around the nails and, as a consequence, the occurrence of a similar problem is a poorly performed manicure.
Troubles with the skin around the nail often occur after an improperly trimmed manicure performed at home or in a beauty salon by an inexperienced specialist.
To prevent the formation of burrs, the following rules must be observed:
How to trim the cuticle correctly to prevent the appearance of hangnails on the fingers? The use of keratolytics, cuticle softening agents, as well as the correct cutting technique allows you to make the procedure safe and avoid injury to the living and tender nail fold.
Basic rules for cutting cuticles safely:
If, despite a perfectly executed manicure, problems with the periungual area still exist, you should find out why hangnails appear on your fingers.
Not only is this necessary to keep your finger looking flawless, it's likely that hangnails are an important sign of poor health.
Often, hangnails on the fingers are a sign of an incorrect attitude towards oneself or an unpleasant symptom of dangerous diseases.
Causes of hangnails on the fingers associated with lifestyle disorders:
Causes of hangnails on fingers associated with health problems:
To answer the question of how to treat hangnails on the fingers, you first need to determine the cause of their appearance. If improper care and attitude towards yourself can be corrected on your own, then health problems can only be solved by a specialist.
When hangnails appear on the fingers, treatment should begin by eliminating the cause of its formation.
Before choosing a diet for weight loss, you need to consult a doctor who will tell you what type of diet is suitable, taking into account contraindications. This will avoid many problems, including skin ones.
To maintain normal water balance, so that the skin is sufficiently hydrated, you should drink at least 2 liters of fluid daily. To remove intestinal dysbiosis, bifidobacteria and lactobacilli are prescribed in the form of capsules, as well as homemade yoghurts prepared using special starter cultures.
To prevent dry skin and get rid of the need to answer the question of how to treat hangnails on your hands, it is enough to follow simple preventive measures.
You should:
Hangnails on the fingers become inflamed, painful, and suppuration may occur. You can get rid of this problem thanks to creams, ointments and folk remedies.
Hangnails are small pieces of skin that cause a lot of problems and pain. Hangnails can cling to clothing, they become inflamed and ruin even the most perfect manicure. If a woman has such a problem on her hands, it is difficult for her to do household chores, she experiences discomfort and pain.
Some people become aware of this problem in early childhood. Others, when they grow up, and others don’t know about it at all. Few people know why dry hangnails appear on the fingers? The reasons can be very diverse, and they include:
Contact with water and chemicals dries out the skin, causing it to crack and develop hangnails. If you do not take care of your hands and do not remove hangnails in a timely manner, this can develop into a huge problem - inflammation of the finger or nail fold.
Hangnails can appear not only on the arms, but also on the legs. Some men and women wonder what causes a hangnail on their big toe? The reasons may lie in poor foot and nail care.
Important: Every day before going to bed, wash your feet and dry them with a cotton towel.
It is necessary to visit a pedicurist who can clean the skin of your feet from corns and calluses on which bacteria can accumulate. In addition, the master will carefully trim your nails. If you take care of it yourself, you can harm the skin around your fingers. An infection will get into it, and hangnails will begin to appear.
REMEMBER: If you trim hard hangnails on your legs yourself, you should do it carefully so as not to injure the skin, which can become inflamed and hurt for a long time.
IMPORTANT: Do not pull out burrs with tongs! This is a disease that must not only be carefully removed, but also treated!
Hangnails are not only a cosmetic defect, but also the cause of serious problems. A small piece of skin begins to rot if it becomes infected. Such a wound may occur if the body lacks vitamins and microelements.
So, what vitamins are missing when you have hangnails on your fingers? The elasticity of the skin begins to decrease if the body loses vitamins A, E and group B. The skin near the nail becomes keratinized, peeling begins and a hangnail appears.
The skin near the nail may appear red, painful when pressed. Then swelling and pus appear under the skin - this means that the hangnail on the finger is inflamed and festering. What to do in this case and how to get rid of the problem?
If a person has a weak immune system, the source of infection spreads and then a problem arises that must be dealt with immediately so that blood poisoning does not begin and life is not threatened. You should do the following:
Treatment can be carried out using potassium permanganate.
Dissolve a few crystals of this substance in warm water and soak your hands in this solution. Do this daily until the abscess disappears completely. Instead of potassium permanganate, you can use salt or soda. Dissolve a teaspoon of salt or soda, or half a teaspoon of salt and soda together in one container with warm water. Lower your hands and hold until the water cools down.
Aloe or Kalanchoe juice helps a lot with this problem. Simply lubricate the area of the abscess with the cut plant. Do this several times a day.
The reasons for the appearance of this problem in a baby include the same factors as in adults. The main reasons include:
If such a problem arises, then it is necessary to immediately remove hangnails on the child’s fingers. Reasons and photos will help parents recognize the problem in their baby and help him in a timely manner.
Young parents always panic if something happens to their newborn baby. The baby constantly cries, refuses to eat, and sleeps poorly. The reason for all this may be hangnails. Few parents know why a newborn has hangnails on his fingers?
To prevent your baby from developing such a problem as hangnails, you need to bathe him every day, ventilate the room and dress him in loose clothes.
IMPORTANT: Nail trimming for newborns is done once a week. Burrs are trimmed carefully. You should not cut them at the root, so as not to damage the “living” tissue.
A child may have a bad habit of biting his nails and picking off hangnails. Often the problem appears sequentially: a child has torn off a hangnail, the finger becomes inflamed and breaks out. What should parents do in this case to avoid consequences?
TIP: Make a strong brine solution - one teaspoon of salt (regular or sea). Dissolve in a glass of warm boiled water. Lower your finger and hold until the water cools down. Dry the skin well and treat with an antiseptic or hydrogen peroxide. Cover your finger with adhesive tape.
After 2-3 days of such procedures, you can completely forget about the problem. If your finger continues to break out, then you need to consult a doctor who will prescribe treatment. Perhaps this was caused by other, more serious problems.
To prevent hangnails from appearing, it is necessary to constantly moisturize the skin. Baths, various creams and hand masks are suitable for this. An excellent remedy for hangnails on fingers is any antiseptic that will disinfect the damaged area of skin. You can nourish the skin after treatment using cosmetic oil. Almond oil, which contains many trace elements, is perfect for this.
It’s easy to make your own good cosmetic oil to nourish your skin.
RECIPE: Take refined vegetable oil. Pour into a small jar or bottle and drop in a sprig of sage. Place the container with the grass in a dark place for two weeks. After this, drain the oil into another container and add 10 drops of vitamin E (sold at the pharmacy) per 50 grams of oil. Pour the resulting solution into easy-to-use bottles and apply to the skin daily.
A good way to get rid of hangnails is to treat the skin with antiseptic agents. But if the problem does not disappear, then what should you use to smear the hangnails on your fingers? Traditional recipes will help get rid of this trouble.
RECIPE 1: Heat the olive oil in a water bath until it reaches a temperature that is pleasant for the body. Dip your fingers into it for 10 minutes.
RECIPE 2: Warm one liter of water to body temperature. Add 5 drops of bergamot oil, a teaspoon of sea salt and the juice of half a lemon. Place the solution and immerse your hands in it for 15 minutes.
RECIPE 3: Steam your hands in warm salt water. Apply an alcohol lotion to the affected area. After 15 minutes, remove and spread the skin with St. John's wort or calendula oil.
RECIPE 4: Infusion of birch buds helps a lot. Pour boiling water over two teaspoons of the herb and leave in a steam bath for half an hour. When the infusion has cooled, soak a cotton pad in it and lubricate the hangnails and the skin near them.
Many people do not believe in traditional recipes and therefore ask the question: “how to get rid of hangnails on fingers using traditional medicine? Anti-inflammatory ointments are great help. If the process of skin decay continues for a long time, then you should give preference to ointments with antibiotics. The following ointments should be used:
Important: Apply ointments as a bandage at night. The effect will be visible after the first use.
In addition to all the above methods, you can try various creams to treat hangnails. If you have dry skin, then you may have this problem. Therefore, you need to know how to cure hangnails on your fingers. Cream for hangnails on fingers:
Advice: Any baby cream sold in pharmacies and cosmetic stores will be effective in treatment.
Many women develop hangnails after trimming their manicure. In this case, it is necessary to replace it with an unedged one. If after this the question arises as to why hangnails appear after a manicure, then you should look for another reason. Perhaps the master has soft and old tools that he does not process after each client.
ADVICE: During a manicure, ask to push back the cuticle with an orange stick - this is safe and will prevent problems with the skin around the nails.
ADVICE: You should not give up manicure completely, since the complete absence of a manicure also entails the appearance of hangnails. Visit the salon once every two weeks and ask the specialist to use treated tools.
If hangnails appear after one or two days after visiting a beauty salon, then the following actions should be taken:
Women often have questions about how to remove hangnails after a manicure, since not all salon technicians are conscientious about their work. They must process not only the tool, but also the workplace after each client.
This problem cannot be considered harmless, since it can develop into a serious disease, which is an infectious inflammation of the skin. Therefore, as soon as you notice painful peeling of the skin, you should immediately treat hangnails on your fingers.
Advice and feedback will help you act correctly in this situation. After all, some people, when any trouble arises, begin to panic and cannot immediately figure out what to do and where to run.
Follow the advice to avoid unpleasant consequences and not get complications in the form of paronychia.
Many people have hangnails on their fingers. What to treat and what the most effective methods should be known in order to prevent the development of complications.
This problem seems harmless only at first glance. In addition to a lot of inconvenience, hangnails can cause inflammation and abscess if an infection gets into this area.
Hangnails are tears in the skin of the nail folds. They usually appear on the side ridges, on the sides at the base of the nail, since these places are most exposed to mechanical stress.
In this case, a slight itching occurs in the affected area; upon contact with water, a moderate tingling occurs.
Burrs can be small or large, multiple or single. Constant companions of such injuries are pain and bleeding.
In addition to the unaesthetic appearance of the hands, exfoliated dermis complicates everyday life, clinging to clothes and hair, which causes discomfort.
There are internal and external factors that cause damage to the integrity of the dermis.
Internal include:
Gastrointestinal diseases. In particular, dysbiosis. At the same time, vitamins are not absorbed in sufficient quantities in the intestines.
External factors include:
The problem can occur on both fingers and toes. Not regularly caring for the skin of your hands and nails, lack of vitamins and minerals, and the habit of biting your nails lead to hangnails on your fingers. Causes and treatment are two interrelated concepts. After all, the treatment of this disease directly depends on the causes.
Many people try to tear off the exfoliated skin. Worth remembering! This is absolutely not allowed! Tearing off the skin will lead to disruption of the integrity of healthy skin, and if an infection is added to this, then it is possible that an abscess, inflammation of the periungual fold (in medicine called paronychia), acute purulent inflammation of the tissues of the fingers (in medicine - panaritium) may occur.
Many people think that hangnails are absolutely harmless. But this, to put it mildly, is not true. Any damage to the integrity of the skin is a kind of “gateway” for infection that can come from outside - streptococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, fungi.
Some of the serious consequences are panaritium and paronychia. With such diseases, you can no longer do without the help of medicine. Moreover, paronychia can become chronic and then haunt a person for the rest of his life. Therefore, if there is a detachment of the dermis on the fingers, it is better to immediately remove them correctly and follow preventive measures in the future.
Diagnostics will help identify the true cause of the problem. Indeed, in addition to the influence of external factors, the cause of this problem can be the lack of vitamins and dysbacteriosis.
For diagnosis, you should take a biochemical blood test, an analysis for the presence of vitamins in the blood, and a stool test for the presence of dysbacteriosis. A clear sign of a lack of vitamins, especially group A, are flaky spots on the body, in particular on the face, legs and palms.
If in childhood we are not particularly bothered by hangnails on our fingers, then older girls perceive them as a disaster. They spoil the appearance of well-groomed hands and manicured fingers. So few women treat them as an annoying little thing. Note that men's hands (as well as children's hands) are also not decorated with hangnails. And they sometimes appear even on the most well-groomed hands.
It’s good if the burrs are not deep and quickly go away, seemingly on their own. It is much worse if they begin to become inflamed, and sometimes even fester. Then this becomes a serious problem requiring medical intervention. So where do they come from? And is it possible to somehow fight them? Let's try to figure it out.
At home, before removing a hangnail, you need to steam your hands a little. Make a warm one for your hands and hold your hands in it for ten to fifteen minutes. You can add chamomile decoction to your bath water, which acts as a disinfectant and anti-inflammatory agent.
Special pliers will help you get rid of a hangnail. However, for those who do their own manicure or who simply need these tweezers. They will not apply to you if hangnails often appear on you or your loved ones.
And don’t forget that manicure is necessary not only to maintain the beauty of your hands, but also to prevent the appearance of hangnails on your fingers. If possible, use the services of professional craftsmen. Well, if this is not possible, then purchase a high-quality manicure tool. Remember that the miser pays twice! But you shouldn’t skimp on health and beauty. Stay beautiful always and in spite of everything!