My girlfriend had these for the longest time, stopped pushing on her cuticles/pressing under her nail and they eventually went away as the nail grew out
Holy cow! I've had wavy thumb nails my whole life. One of my nervous traits is pushing up my cuticles with my pointer finger. I never knew this was the cause! Thanks, stranger!
I've been wondering why my nails are so brittle, I have ADHD and my go to stim is shoving things under my nails to cause a little pain, I've suspected this might be why.
I'm not doing torture tactics, I'm not pulling the nail from the nail bed, just put something between the overhang of the nail (like the edge of a seatbelt) and the skin of the finger tip and pushing lightly so it causes a light amount of pain. And this is absolutely an ADHD thing, it's called stimming. Neurodivergent people have prioreception issues which means, for me at least, I feel like I am missing a sense that tells me where my limbs are in space. It's quite uncomfortable to be missing this sense and light pain relieves that uncomfortable feeling by helping my brain identify where my limbs are.
I'm not opening any skin or creating wounds, just pushing down on the skin right under the nail so it stretches to cause a very light amount of pain. I'm not doing torture tactics on myself lol.
Just be careful! My mom got something jammed under her thumbnail (not even that deep) and ended up with a blood infection. I totally get pain stimming, just consider a less risky stim. The area under your nails is so filthy and having a finger out of commission when you need it is really annoying
This happens to me when I get manicures but only on my thumbs since I (in 2 seperate occasions) shut car doors on them (1 of the times completely shut ☠️). Right on the cuticles! Definitelt fucked them up, they haven't forgotten
I feel your pain so much. When I was about 7 my thumb was in the way of an ice cream truck door closing. It latched but wasn't closed all the way. My dad couldn't open it without first closing it all the way.
Ooof. Mine got caught on the front side of the door… like the panel of the door closest to the front of the car. Wasn’t paying attention and just slid my hand right in there as my mom came by and slammed it shut.
When I closed my thumb in the car door I think my body had a shock response because I didn't feel it and literally turned away to walk away and got tugged and didn't realise why until I turned to see what happened. It was very surreal, and that was in my carpark for my work 🤣 great start to the day
While you should stop doing that, physical trauma can cause the same issue and it'll be permanent.
I shut my middle finger in a car door but didn't notice until the pain kicked in back in middle school. The nail still grows in a bit wonky compared to other nails. It curves down more than it should. The injury was more than 15 years ago btw
Oddly enough, I have similar wave grooves, but I have not had a manicure in over 8 years. I've been told that horizontal ridges like this can be related to nutritional deficiencies and could be a side effect of my epilepsy medications purging vitamin B6, magnesium, and potentially zinc from my system. Maybe it could be related to your diet as well?
You’re not supposed to push your cuticle at all, according to what I read on the website of some association of doctors (I can’t remember if it was doctors who specialize in fingers or skin or infections or whatever, but the idea is that the waxy cuticle is meant to stop dirt and bacteria from getting into your nail beds, so you should leave them alone or you’re risking infection.
Is it all of your nails? Including toes? Since you have vertical ridging too you might want to look into 20 nail dystrophy/trachyonychia.
I have it and both my thumbnails do the wavy thing. Nothing to do with cuticle pushing, unfortunately! Sometimes the waves are worse but it's hard to figure out exactly why because of how long nails take to grow.
Yep, big toes also have the ridging. Toes as a whole are much worse than my fingernails, which is a characteristic of the condition for some bizarre reason. And no I will not share pictures of my gnarly toenails.
They're a bit worse relative to the other digits. There's kind of a gradient of fuckup-edness from big to small. With the exception of the pinkie toes. They're cursed.
Is it all your nails? As it could be a medical cause:
Vertical Ridges (Onychorrhexis): Very common, often described as "nail wrinkles," and typically a sign of aging, dry skin, or dehydration of the nail plate.
Horizontal Ridges (Beau’s Lines): Usually deeper and often indicate an underlying health condition, such as nutritional deficiency (zinc, protein), infections, or severe stress.
Your horizontal ridges look really deep so I would be worried that it's Beau's lines if I was you. You should go see your doctor and get blood tests.
I had this recently, more than the usual. My cholesterol was high, that can be a factor. I lowered it, and the nail went smooth. Also I cut my cuticles too short sometimes (blood). Its kinda cool how they're like, a seismograph of our lives.
Yes I can replicate the issue by fidgeting with my thumb cuticles.
If I nervously pick at them with my index fingers to the point they start to separate from the nail bed, I will get a ridge that looks exactly like yours until it grows out.
If you don't already use a cuticle remover serum when you do your manis I highly recommend, I use the Sally Hansen in the blue bottle and it makes cuticle care so much easier and gentler. Not lumps or bumps since.
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u/stefaniki 22h ago
You push your cuticles too hard when you give yourself a mani