The fingertip and nail that never heals .... Any tips for the fingertips

Yo, so ever since December of 2018, my right middle fingertip has been perpetually cracked and the nail has separated from the bed by about 3 or 4mm. This started during some winter alpine climbing (no chalk being used, but cold), then continued during the winter ice climbing (hand is in a glove, but somehow still gets messed up...) season of 2019. The nail and fingertip kind of healed after a lull of activity in March and April, but then split right back open to it's standard bloody cracked self once June rolled around and rock climbing came back into swing. The trend continued through the rest of 2019 and continues to this day. Even just working in the machine shop using hand tools and stuff pisses it off and causes the fingertip to crack again. The nail bed recededing /separation just will not heal and reconnect: If i let my nail grow long, it kind of protects the skin on the fingertip, but then the nail gets ripped, bent, or otherwise messed up, if I trim the nail back, the skin on the fingertip at the nail gets bloodied and cracked, which then encourages further seperation of the nail from the nail bed and the cycle repeats. I've tried lotion, climb on bar, I've been taping my middle finger to protect it when I'm working in the machine shop and with tools to prevent injury and with this COVID19 "you can't climb or do anything" situation my fingertip has for the first time in like 2 years had an opportunity to not be completely abused by climbing - but despite that its still not healing.

Anyone else deal with this? Any thoughts or ideas? This shouldn't be a nutriotion or other health issue, all my other nails and fingertips are fine, its just this middle right fingertip and nail.

Thanks

I was trying to see a gross pic of a nail falling off or something.. darn

No pics wtf

LOL - google images works well if you're just looking for gross nails.

But fair enough,  I guess here are some for the peanut gallery.

The first two with the pen and paper in the background were just taken, this is like "as good as it gets" in the last two years, and whenever I go climbing or work heavily the shop it just goes downhill from there.

 

Soak it in cider

Foy O wrote: Super glue that thing shut man

Yeah I could see super glue definitely being useful if I was climbing to minimize further damage, but wouldn't that glue also just prevent the nail bed from re-attaching to the nail?  Seems like a good idea especially for long trips where you're climbing for two consecutive weeks ... could have definitely used that last summer.

Regarding the fungus suggestions - Yeah I should probably look into that more. I did actually show this to my doctor last time I had a visit and he seemed to think that it was just dry and cracked skin that didn't have an opportunity to heal but given that it's had more than a month to heal since it was last split open and bleeding I should probably look into a anti fungus thing. There's no discoloration either and it hasn't "spread" to any other nails, but a topical anti fungus treatment wouldn't hurt anything  fungus or not.

I have quite a similar issue, dermatologist said it was damage to my nailbed. Super glue it.

Alright, I'll super glue this thing and see what happens. Thanks for the input

Kelley Gilleran wrote: Soak it in cider

....but I just met er

Mr.Andreson wrote: Yo, so ever since December of 2018, my right middle fingertip has been perpetually cracked and the nail has separated from the bed by about 3 or 4mm. This started during some winter alpine climbing (no chalk being used, but cold), then continued during the winter ice climbing (hand is in a glove, but somehow still gets messed up...) season of 2019. The nail and fingertip kind of healed after a lull of activity in March and April, but then split right back open to it's standard bloody cracked self once June rolled around and rock climbing came back into swing. The trend continued through the rest of 2019 and continues to this day. Even just working in the machine shop using hand tools and stuff pisses it off and causes the fingertip to crack again. The nail bed recededing /separation just will not heal and reconnect: If i let my nail grow long, it kind of protects the skin on the fingertip, but then the nail gets ripped, bent, or otherwise messed up, if I trim the nail back, the skin on the fingertip at the nail gets bloodied and cracked, which then encourages further seperation of the nail from the nail bed and the cycle repeats. I've tried lotion, climb on bar, I've been taping my middle finger to protect it when I'm working in the machine shop and with tools to prevent injury and with this COVID19 "you can't climb or do anything" situation my fingertip has for the first time in like 2 years had an opportunity to not be completely abused by climbing - but despite that its still not healing.

Anyone else deal with this? Any thoughts or ideas? This shouldn't be a nutriotion or other health issue, all my other nails and fingertips are fine, its just this middle right fingertip and nail.

Thanks

Hot water soak with epsom salts daily.

Coat it in some salve or whatever and stick in a glove during work to keep clean.

May have to rip the nail off and start over, best for doc to do that though.

Enjoy!