Your fingernails harbor essential clues about your overall health. Observing them closely can uncover valuable insights and provide early warnings of potential health issues.
Examine your nails for breakage, chipping, variations in thickness, ridges, grooves, dips, and curves. Pay attention to the color beneath the nail, the surrounding skin, and the nail itself.
Changes in your nails can be indicative of various diseases. Typically, healthy nails are pink with a pinkish-white base. Conversely, discolored or lackluster nails may signal underlying health problems. For example, green nails might suggest bacterial presence, while red streaks in the nail bed could indicate a heart valve infection. Blueish nails may imply low blood oxygen, and dull nails might hint at a vitamin deficiency. White nails might be a sign of liver disorders. Monitoring nail color can yield valuable insights into potential health concerns.
Thickened Nails: Excessive thickness, resembling talons, might be a sign of lung or fungal infections, thyroid disease, or psoriasis. It’s also wise to consider possible allergic reactions to medications.
Broken or Split Nails: Nails that split or break, peeling in layers, could indicate nutritional deficiencies or psoriasis. Split nails might also signal chronic malnutrition.
To bolster your health:
– Maintain a balanced diet.
– Investigate potential links to psoriasis.
Spoon-Shaped Nails: Soft, curved, water-holding nails may hint at anemia, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, or liver disorders.
Pitted Nails: Dips or holes could result from trauma or indicate the need for closer health monitoring. Pitting has been linked to various conditions.
Ridge Lines: Ideally, nails should have flat surfaces with barely noticeable lines. Thick ridge lines may be associated with lupus, iron deficiency, or inflammatory arthritis.
Brittle, Dry Nails: Dry, brittle nails may indicate fungal infections, hormonal imbalances, or thyroid issues.
Clubbed Nails: Swelling over the nail bed may point to lung problems, IBS, AIDS, or liver disease.
Don’t underestimate the messages your hands and fingernails convey about your health. Regular nail inspections allow you to proactively safeguard your well-being.
Remember to compare any changes to potential health risks listed. By staying vigilant, you can unravel the intricate link between your fingernails and overall health, leading to a healthier, more informed life.
“People Only Know Me as a Freak,” The Wolf Man Struggles to Find a Job Outside the Circus
Jesús Aceves has hypertrichosis, which makes his hair grow abundantly over his face and back. Because of his condition, he’s also known as The Wolf Man. But he’s tired of this alias and wants to live a normal life.
Meet Jesús Aceves, a 55-year-old man born with a condition called hypertrichosis, which means he has abnormal hair growth over his body, especially his face. Although married with kids, Jesús isn’t fully happy with his living conditions. He says he and his family suffer discrimination. In an interview, one of his kids mentioned, “People call me names, and they even tell their kids not to be my friends.”
© Chuy, El hombre lobo / Chuy, The Wolf Man / Facebook
He worked in the circus all his life, traveling through several cities. But now, he’s tired of being seen as a freak. As a consequence of years on the road, he’s been known as The Wolf Man.
Back home and not in the circus anymore, he’s facing another challenge: finding a “normal” job. He needs to support his family since his wife works in temporary jobs.
After several failed job interviews, he agreed to try something he had always avoided: shave his face. He relied on his family barber to transform him, even creating eyebrows and lashes.
The experience was difficult since the face is an extremely sensitive body area, but both he and his wife believed that simply by shaving, he would be able to find a job.
Jesús did several interviews, and it’s confident that now he’ll find somewhere to work besides the circus. If this happens, he must shave his face every 2 days.
Although rare, some conditions aren’t impossible to have. Luckily, people find a way to overcome the difficulties a rare condition brings and strive in life. Hannah Tyre, for example, was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, meaning that her bones break very easily. But her love for makeup made her an internet influencer, reaching millions of followers. We hope that, by reaching the mainstream media, people with genetic diseases won’t suffer more discrimination.
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