Diseases affect Your Nails…Which and How?
Nails grow at a rate 0.1mm/day. how can systemic diseases affect your nails and how do your nails look like?
Koilonychia
The Commonest systemic diseases affect your nails is anemia. Anemia cause Koilonychia which is (spoon-shaped nails) from the greek origin hollow-nail.
Causes: Iron deficiency anemia
coronary heart diseases
Syphilis (sexually transmitted diseases as well as from infected pregnant to her fetus)
Malnutrition resulting into essential vitamins deficiency and iron.
under-function of the thyroid gland
Hemochromatosis (Bronzed diabetes due to iron deposition in skin and pancreas causing diabetes)
Upper gastrointestinal tract malignancy
Idiopathic, old age and nail trauma
Diabetes and Kidney, Heart Attack and stroke
Clubbing: serious systemic diseases that affect your nails
The opposite of koilonychias (Two types hypoxic (blue) and Toxic (Pale)) and idiopathic.
Exaggerated longitudinal curvature with loss of the nail between the nail and the nail fold.
Causes: cyanotic congenital heart diseases, infective endocarditis, primary and metastatic lung cancer, bronchiectasis, lung abscess, cystic fibrosis, mesothelioma, inflammatory bowel disease, and hepatic cirrhosis.
Leuconychia:
White nails or milk spots on nails. The condition can be caused by heavy metal poisoning particularly lead, liver cirrhosis and chemotherapy drugs.
Mees lines
These are parallel white transverse bands. Causes: Arsenic, antimony and carbon monoxide poisoning, Cancer, chemotherapeutic drugs, renal, hepatic and cardiac failure, pneumonia leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria.
Muehrcke’s lines: Another common systemic diseases that affect your nails.
Paired white transverse line specific for hypoalbuminia (when albumin levels drop <2 g/dL) and disappear when the protein level normalizes. Muehrcke’s lines have been reported in nephrotic syndrome, glomerulonephritis, liver disease, chemotherapeutic drugs, and malnutrition.
Terry’s lines:
nail that is white proximally and normal distally. Causes heart failure, Diabetes, renal hemodyalysis, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Cancer and aging.
Lindsay lines
(half and half nail) a normal proximal half and abnormal brownish/pinkish discolored distal half seen in renal failure.
Splinter hemorrhages
Finally, splinter hemorrhages are longitudinal hemorrhagic bands under the nail. Splinter hemorrhages are common in infective endocarditis.