Colorado Springs Dermatologist Dr. Reagan Anderson
Video Transcript
So here’s another daily tip from your friendly local dermatologist!
Let’s talk about how to cut your fingernails. Now the keratin or the protein in your fingernails is pretty strong.So one tip for people who have sensitivity when they’re trimming their nails is to do it at the end of a shower, because they’re gonna be nice and moist. They’re not going to be as hard. You’re gonna have an easier time cutting them. Now you can either use the clippers but just clip them off, or the scissors. I personally prefer the scissors because the clippers force your nail to get flat instead of curved, and as it’s forcing it to get flat, some people just don’t like how that feels. It could potentially produce trauma in the part of your finger that grows the nail, especially if your nail is more curved like this than like this and I think the result is better with scissors. Now you don’t need to cut down to the point where you feel pain. In fact, you shouldn’t, because that means you’re cutting into live tissue that doesn’t need to be cut. What you want to do is you cut into the dead protein of the fingernail itself. So usually you just cut just beyond the point of feeling anything and how fast your nails grow is going to be a function of what time of year it is, what your nutritional status is, what your overall health is and a whole host of other factors. So you’ll have to figure out how often to cut your nails, but do it at the end of the shower, try the scissors and don’t let them get too long because again, too long of a fingernail produces this lever that can then get ripped off and gosh that just doesn’t sound good.
Because Dermatologists treat more than just skin cancer!
