Love all the information!

I used to have really deep, wavy ridges on my thumbs (practically my whole life, but getting worse with age).

Six years ago I went on a gluten free (and more) diet with my son (we found out that he was very ill for 3 years due to gluten causing malabsorption in him). Now, I have no ridges in my thumbs at all (ran horizontally, with the moons almost all the way up the thumbs).

At the beginning, we were therapeutic dosing B vitamins, zinc and magnesium. Now, we take them in therapeutic doses but only as needed... which can sometimes be as little as once a month. We've become pretty expert in seeing our 'shortage symptoms' by playing with our doses over the years.

Qbar, I love your posts! They remind us to take care and reinforce what I found affected us personally. We tried selenium but it seemed to create a mood issue, especially in me. Then I found out it was derived from yeast and so bought another version that was yeast free (I know I have issues with yeast). The yeast free version didn't seem to cause the mood issue but also didn't seem to make any difference in a positive way either and so it was dropped after another two week trial.

Zinc is another one to maintain caution. I find that we really desperately need zinc at times... but zinc can be overdone fairly easily and cause damage too... so we rotate it in now (since we only take vits as needed).

Our biggest ones seem to be magnesium (epsom salt baths make a bigger difference for us than any pill) and a B complex along with an oil (usually evening primrose). This is our own family's magic combination that seems to set our system straight if we're 'having trouble'.

With Christmas coming up, I've got my bottles in a row since all the sugar and grain are sure to create havoc.

But I digress, sorry about that... back to nails.

One thing I've been able to improve but not correct to my satisfaction is the fact that my son's toenails curve down toward his skin as they grow.

His fingernails are model perfect. In fact, he has the most beautiful hands I've ever seen. And his toenails are not ridged or marked... quite clean, clear and perfect looking actually - other than the fact that they curl down as they grow.

There has been improvement over the years. They don't curl down as fast now (they used to cut into his skin very fast), now they don't but I still have to pull them up a bit to cut them, which is of course, uncomfortable for him momentarily.

I toss a few ideas around but can't seem to really isolate where I should continue looking: fungus? protein deficiency? creatinine issue? B deficiency? (perhaps I should be supplementing his Bs more often than I am?).... But I don't want to cause an overload in Bs if the issue is more likely to be magnesium... biotin? which I have removed from our dosages this last year or so? sigh... A magic ball would be great. But I'll take suggestions for research direction as a great second-place response.

Considerthis: I'm going to check out your site right now. We have been using B12 meth over the years as a bit of an insurance policy against p. anemia and neuropathy development.