I've been told that the condition of your finger nails tells a lot about your general health, and that lack of certain vitamins in your diet can lead to them being unhealthy.

Several weeks ago I had no moons on them at all. These are slowly coming back, but now I find I have deep ridges in them. The ridges feel a bit like corrigated iron.

Can any one please tell me what I'm lacking in my diet for my fingernails to have ridges like this?

with age I'm afraid.

if you have white spots on the nails, from minor bang-ups...this can indicate low zinc status.

Some people believe that low B12 makes the moons go away.

When I was hypothyroid, I started getting those long ridges.
They did not go away with fixing the thyroid however.

Ridges that go parallel to the moons and growth plate may show
stress events...trauma, surgery or malnutrition. The long vertical ridges are mostly thought to be due to age.

The color of the nail bed, the shape of the fingertips and presence of dark red lines in the nail bed or discolorations are more diagnostic of disease.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/nails/WO00055&slide=1
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-a...-health?page=2

Hmmmm
My nails got so bad at one pint, I went with fake nails.
Ironically, I went to one physician who said my thyroid was fine.
Then my hair fell out and I gained 20 pounds.
UGH!
I'm now on Thyroid supplements and things are much better. I do however, still have the fake nails. Got a little spoiled with that. I'm thinking that I might try again after the holidays.
I also can forget my multi/mineral supplement. I think this is where I get most of my zinc.
I never forget my B vitamins....I know my energy comes from there.
I agree w/ Mrs. D...check your vitamins and thyroid.
Before my thyroid was okay...I even had trouble with the fake nails failling off. What a mess!

Thank you ladies.

I doubt that my thyroid is under or over active because I had that checked a little while ago.

As the ridges run lengthwise down the nail, I think it must be just old age causing the ridges....*insert a pouting smiley here*

Those links are very interesting mrsD. Thank you.

Now Mrs D would know better but I thought this could be a sign of lack of calcium?

Why does everyone assume that every problem is caused by a deficiency? What about getting too much of something, like selenium, that can cause nail problems? Selenium accumulates over time and this is why my older animals were toxic first.
If you eat a balanced diet, the chances of a deficiency are pretty slim. Especially for selenium. It is high in literally every meat and grain we eat. More is not always better.
Get a selenium level test. I have studied selenium in foods at great length for a couple of years now. Add supplements on top of that and BAM, you could get any one or more of a thousand different problems. Selenium accumulates over time at very low doses. Thresholds thought to be acceptable are just set too high and this has become a chronic toxicity problem in many livestock across the country. So why not humans?

Hi, I had the corrugated ridges, though I thought of them looking like the drippings on a candle.

When I first noticed them I was also thinking of killing myself. This is about a dozen years ago.

When I survived my suicide attempt and looked at my hospital records I saw that I had very low vitamin B12 levels, which meant nothing to me. I did get some MegaB vitamins, which I took a lot of, with the result that my entrenched allergies went away. But, when I had another B12 test there was not a whit of improvement.

When I finally was getting regular B12 shots I found that the ridges began to go away, and now after a decade of replacement therapy my moons are coming back.

I discuss B12 and fingernails on my website. I have a lot of pictures of my nails, illustrating how at stressful times the moons go away. (They don't if I take enough Methylcobalamin, but when I'm under a lot of stress I often fail to do what is most important, I just get confused and don't do the right things.)

**** Oh... I should mention that once I'd had quite a lot of B12 replacement my thinking greatly improved and I no longer felt like killing myself, even when things were as stressful as they were then.

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.

If his feet are in shoes which are too tight in the toe box,
then the shoes press down on the nails ...

Try another style of shoe, or at least a wider one.

Boys tend to push forward on the toes, anyway.

If it were fungus, there would be an abnormal looking nailbed thru the nail. The nail would be discolored too.

Nice to see you again Kim.

Hi MrsD. Nice to see you too.

This is actually a problem that pre-dates shoes. Within his first year of life his toenails were curving sharply downward and it was very bad by the third year.

Even now, we homeschool, so he seldom wears shoes, if anything, usually his soft leather, native Canadian slippers. In the summer, he wears those open-toed slide-on-shoes when we go out. And he insists that summer runs, generally, from April to November.

They used to be much worse but are definitely improving. His big toenails (I took another look last night) are no longer curving downward at all. The two that are now the worst are the 2nd and 3rd toenails.

I just don't want to start going backward. He's come SO far!

Actually, I don't want to end my note in a negative way. He's come from being a fatigued boy who could barely walk a block, an immunological mess (almost always 'sick') and only grew 1/2 of what he was supposed to - to not 'needing' any medicine or doctors for almost 6 years now.

So, he's still (knock on wood) doing fabulously! Playing the guitar, got plenty of energy for Aikido, vaulted all through the summer, his buddies come over on Fridays and they spend ALL DAY running outside, sometimes he goes to their house on Wednesdays and their Mom tells me they run all day there too. So, life is really great.

I'm nitpicking now, I suppose. But so many things improved for him, including his toenails, that I never expected to improve... that I think if I keep looking, I can do even better for him. And lately, the two toenails have seemed a little worse and his hair seems a little more straw-like... so these kinds of threads really catch my eye.

Am I letting too much sugar and grain into his diet now? I have relaxed a lot about it and we do know that his system really just doesn't do well with a lot of grain/sugar. Is it due to cutting out biotin, thereby reducing ability to process protein???? (I went out and bought some more yesterday to get us through the grain/sugar filled holidays.) Not enough epsom baths to reduce toxin levels? We've really dropped the ball on those baths, which were/are really miraculous on those really challenging days? There are very few really challenging days now, so we don't do the baths very often any more. I've dropped the ball on gelatin too. Could that be it?

I think nails/hair really do reflect where a person is at. Finding the magic formula to counter whatever's going on is worth looking for, but a very challenging journey. Sure beats sitting in Emerg. at midnight, every other week though.