If treatment is delayed too long, removal of the nail is necessary.
Nails are a good indicator of our health and can reveal a malfunction in the body. For example, stained or non-growing nails can indicate a deficiency, soft nails can be a sign of a hormonal disorder, yellowish nails can suggest a liver problem… In addition, we tend to pay less attention to it, but the color underneath the nail – the nail bed – is also something to watch out for.
A gray-black line under the nail is quite common and usually not serious. “It is often a matter of dirt that accumulates under the nails, most often consisting of debris from keratin from the underside of the nail, as well as skin cells from the nail bed“, explains Dr. Dana Stern, a dermatologist in New York and Southampton, interviewed by the American media Women’s Health. On the other hand, if this “gunk” changes from gray-black to green, it can be more serious and indicate the presence of a bacterial infection. Some bacterial organisms have a particular affinity with the nail and surrounding folds: Pseudomonas, for example, is commonly found under the nails and produces a green pigment that nail technicians and nail professionals often call “green nail syndrome” or chromonychia, we can read in a study published in the journal Annals of Dermatology.
In this case, treatment consists of applying drops based on tobramycin (an antibiotic), or even oral antifungal medications (antibiotics or itraconazole). If treatment is delayed too long and “Despite the various treatment options available, nail removal is necessary in many cases“, specify the authors of the study.
This infection occurs more often in women who wear “false nails” or have long nails.because they are the perfect refuge for bacteria“. It can also appear in cases of poor hand hygiene, maceration (after a long swim for example), trauma or foreign bodies in the skin that serve as entry points for the body. The ideal way to protect yourself from infections is to keep your nails short (but not too short either to avoid the risk of ingrown toenails or whitlows), to clean the nail bed every day and to avoid using moisturizing creams that are too thick which “can be slimy and hold dirt“.