During your lifetime, you will eat about 30,000kg of food ,that’s the weight of about six African elephants.
has a line-up of specialist and general Your exciting and revealing paper your health concerns – and it is for practice doctors waiting to answer health bugs and let this week’s free! So come on, send in those nagging have to worry about revealing your Sun Doctor deal with it. You don’t fine! true identity. Give us a pseudo, it’s
Dear Doc,
For two weeks now, my finger nails have been chipping and I am worried because this has weakened them. What could be causing this problem?Reader
Dear Reader
Nails are made of a protein called keratin and they have several layers that can peel. The causes of this damage are either external or internal.
Nails take about six months to grow, so the damage you see today may have been caused by a trauma several months ago. If the finger nails are chipping and the toe nails are healthy, then the cause is most likely external. This may be due to having your fingers in water frequently or for prolonged periods, peeling off nail polish, use of nail polish removers, using acrylic nails, pressing on the nails for long or using the nails as a tool for example to open, lift or remove something. Internal causes of nail chipping are rare and may be due to iron deficiency, deficiency of a vitamin or thyroid disease. These will affect both the finger and toe nails.
To protect your nails, avoid exposing them to water frequently or for a prolonged period of time, apply lotion or cream to hands before swimming, wear cotton-lined rubber gloves when doing water-based household chores, take iron supplements if necessary, take biotin supplements, remove nail coatings gently, without pulling or scraping, file your nails to achieve curved edges and avoid using your nails as tools.