Big toe nails: Diagnosis and prognosis?
My big toe nails have seen better days. The rest of my toe nails are fine. Mostly.
I do not really know how long this has been going on. A couple of years, perhaps?
I had not really been paying much attention to it until now, when the ends have become impossible to trim with a nail clipper (I use a nail file now), but then again, I am not quite sure that they are growing much or at all right now.
[Edit: Removed medical information, but basically poor immune system in 2024 and 2025.]
The left toe has obviously sustained a bit of trauma months ago, but other than that, it looks pretty much the same as the right one, which to me suggests that the layers might have a medical cause.
I guess my concern is that it does not look to me as if a new nail is growing beneath those old layers. The closeup of the one with the trauma looks particularly bad.
I was considering seeing a specialist, but a quick search told me that losing a nail once in a while is not uncommon, depending on footwear and physical activity.
Should I just leave them alone and wait for them to fall off on their own, taking care not to snag them on anything or try to pull them off before they are good and ready? What should I expect?
EDIT: Yes, fungal infection came up in my searches, and yes, I intend to see a specialist. There has just not been any pain and it has not bothered me, so my mind has been on other things for the past couple of years. Just checking if anyone in here has had similar issues and how things went for them. I like to collect a bit of information before seeing a specialist, so I have an idea of what to expect. As for any medication, I might have to coordinate that with my oncologist.