dents on nails

[lisa breddy]

My niece who is 14 has lots of little dents on her nails. Her left index finger is the worst with a few on the other nails. The nail also layers and peels slightly. I looked in my book and it said about pitting, caused by psoriasis. She does'nt have any psoriasis at all anywhere. I advised her to see the doc. Any advise what else this could be. She does bite her nails and it looks like teeth marks, but obviously is'nt! thanks lisa

 

[LBR]

Hi,

I was just speaking to my sister about her friends little girl last night and I noticed that when doing her pre-Christmas manicure that she has exactly what you described - like little pin prick marks on her nails. I asked if she new if she was diagnosed with psoriasis - but no.

So I would be interested to what anyone else thinks.

I suppose you must be able to have psoriasis without having any other symptoms than marks on your fingernails.

 

[Bagpuss]

Hiya, i suffered with psoriasis all my childhood and i didn't have marks on my nails. I have seen these marks on other people and wondered myself.

 

[scattyfox]

My son had this growing up and he was found to have a lack of vitamin K and D had to take a supliment and plenty of sunshine, it comes and goes now according to whether he takes his meds, (big boy living on his own now). He also had ridges in his nails as he got older.
HTH

 

[scattyfox]

not ridges like in trauma but ridges like someone had taken the shiny coat off his nails and left the rail tracks
x

 

[Envy]

My niece who is 14 has lots of little dents on her nails. Her left index finger is the worst with a few on the other nails. The nail also layers and peels slightly. I looked in my book and it said about pitting, caused by psoriasis. She does'nt have any psoriasis at all anywhere. I advised her to see the doc. Any advise what else this could be. She does bite her nails and it looks like teeth marks, but obviously is'nt! thanks lisa

Little dents in the nail plate is a sign of minor trauma to the nail matrix as it was producing the nail plate. Ie it's the spots where the nail has weakly bonded causing the soft cells to fall out in small chunks.

It is possible that it may be diet related, but less likely.

Psorisis would be more noticeable as it would leave nail with severe roughness, along with pitting , dark yellowish patches (salmon patches) or onycholysis. Psorisis can occur on the nails and have no signs anywhere else on the body.