Fingernails, help!

[Shuttheblinds]

My fingernail has been like this for some time now and doesn’t seem to be improving. It is lifting and growing almost upwards. Doctor checked for fungus and there is no infection, however it seems to be starting on other nails now too. Sometimes the area around the white bit spread into my finger is red around it. My other fingernails, the white bit at the end seems to be increasing as if the same problem is happening there.

Has anyone else had this or does anyone have any idea what could be causing it?

This isnt helpful so Im sorry about this, but its so pretty!!

It looks like your other nails could potentially do it to? Your nails can tell you about your health, do you have any health conditions?

My nails have gone like that over the last couple of weeks, they keep splitting as well. I have been eating a low carb diet recently, full of green veg and protein.....disappointed that my nails seem to be suffering!

Onycholysis seems like a good term to google. See for example skinsight.com/skin-conditions/onycholysis/
It seems that is can have loads of different causes but it does look like your photos OP.

I think what comes out in nails now is from a few months back though so your diet will soon catch up with you and your nails will improve. Ive been taking lots of supplements since October and its only in the last month or so that Ive seen a difference in them (they had lots of ridges in previously)

I agree it does look like my other fingers could do it too.

I was having gel polish on them but haven’t had it for weeks to see if they would improve but they haven’t.

No health conditions that I know about. It does look like oncholysis, just no idea what is causing it.

Maybe ask for a full blood panel, including autoimmune.

Oil twice a day. Keep them clean and short.

This is nail psoriasis also called onycholysis as @Random789 correctly said, it can be triggered by hormones, allergy, stress.. it can get worse from alcohol. It helps to keep nail short as the slightest trauma will have them lift up again if they are long enough. If you drink alcohol go without and see the difference.
Mine started after the birth of my second DC.
Oiling them, supplements and nail hardeners do fuck all. Try to resolve the autoimmune issue, focus on nutrition and figuring out what is making your system flare up and keep the nails short. It can start in one or two doing this and then all of them. It can also move on to toenails. It can be progressive. Sorry.

although it can make you more vulnerable to catching fungal nail infections, it's not a fungal infection and it's not contagious you get it on your othernails because thats how your body is progressing with it not because you cross infected yourself.

@CerealNCer thanks for the extra info. How long did it take yours to clear up? Interesting you mention hormones…I started hrt a few months ago so this could explain it. I don’t drink much at all and eat quite well. Me and my nail tech have been wondering if it could be an allergy to the gel polish but then surely it would be on every finger nail. She advised that I stop using oil on my nails as I was doing that in the hope of it helping, but stopped a couple of weeks ago.

I will ask my gp for full bloods in the meantime just to make sure there is nothing else going on.

12 years on and it's still never cleared, it got gradually worse in that it affected more digits and then my toes. I have a few weeks here and there where my nails grow out normally with the 'white strip' all neat and where it should be like a french manicure but then a slight bump or something and it lifts up again causing that 'wave' or ridge appearance. White is where the nail has lifted up thats why long tips are white obviously so having the whites down the nail bed is where the nail has lifted.

I am anaemic and take Spatone and Floradix but I don't think anaemia is linked to this type of nail disorder.
I take quite high cod liver oil and vit D, vit K for over a year now and saw no difference. They grow faster but it doesn't resolve the lifting issue. You mentioned oil, well I normally use almond or coconut oil as a first cleanse for my face and neck so it rubs on my nails which do get stronger and grow fast but the issue with the lifting and 'tide' white marks or lifting develops again eventually. In my case I haven't noticed oil causing or curing it. I have had to cut my nail quite short, they looked like I'd been biting them but it's because I wanted to stop them bending and breaking further in a bad or angular way and I've been trying to let my nail bed heal so it looks like a normal nail bed... this means regularly filing down and trimming the tips so they look short with a healthy normal length bed nail as sometimes a third or 40% of my nailbed is white which looks painful! I'm talking the slightest bump like reaching for your mug but bumping into the handle or putting a plate down on a table and your finger slightly getting caught between the plate and table for a second! It's ridiculously vulnerable and fragile.

I don't know if it's linked but I used to have painless uneventful periods but since having my DC (and I breastfed for a long while) when my period returned I've been getting very painful sore breasts to the point now from ovulation I don't feel comfortable ..I also developped PMDD and I strongly suspect I have estrogen dominance. Just putting this out there in case you or someone else reading has this as well. I don't know if this is linked to why my system flared up and it showed up in my nails this way?

Anyway sorry to waffle on but I remember spending ages wondering whats wrong. The good news is that when short they can look 'natural' but take a while for any lifting to grow out during which it's important to be patient and keep filing them down so they don't catch and lift up again.. as for growing them out long without ridges, I haven't found a solution..

Where I've said ridges, I meant the white 'tide' marks on the nails.. nail ridges are something else!