Neurological test involving rubbing one's fingernails?
 

When I went to my new neurologist a few weeks ago, he started kind of rubbing the fingernail of my left index finger repeatedly during the neurological exam that he did. He did it a few times, laughed and said "I'm taking the paint off your nails" and then continued on with the rest of his exam. At the time, I thought he was just sort of apologizing that whatever he was doing was causing my nail polish to chip, so I laughed and said "That's okay" and didn't think much else of it. However, now I'm kind of curious what exactly was he testing for? I've watched a lot of videos of comprehensive neurological exams, and I've never seen anyone do that before. Maybe he was literally just trying to remove the nail polish from my nail so he could see the color of my nails or something? I don't know. If that were the case, he could have just asked me to chip it off...I had on several layers, so it should have peeled off with relative ease.

I'm really confused by this and just curious if anyone has any clue what he was testing for.

A thorough doctor will check your fingernails. Sometimes it is only a quick glance.

You can see horizontal lines (and feel them in this case). That would indicate some forms of poisoning, or serious illness.
http://www.google.com/search?q=beau%...w=1173&bih=765

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau%27s_lines

Ah, if he was trying to remove the paint, he didn't get very far before he gave up, and he couldn't have felt if there were any lines with the amount of polish I had on. I'll have to make sure to take my polish off before my appointment next week. Honestly, I have polish on all of the time because I hate the appearance of my nails. They're brittle-looking and gross, and I don't like them. lol. Thanks for the response and information!

The appearance of your nails may be very important to your doctor. So, yes, it may reveal things to him he needs to know.

well no 1 he should have told her that and not started to rub the paint off. If my dr took my hand and started doing that , I would be very alarmed and want to know what he was doing and why...