Allergy to polish?

[Nailed.]

Good Morning all,
Would really appreciate a wee bit of help with my mums nails. Bit of background first: She has worn polish for years, non stop. About 4 years ago she took an infection of sorts under her thumb nail and has had antibiotic and drainage treatment quite a few times (nice!). The actual nail is starting to lift at the free edge away from the nail bed and it does cause her some pain. The other thumb is not normal either but just not as bad. She has been to a specialist at the hospital who advised she needed her nails removed and the tissue underneath "scraped" off. As you would imagine my Mum was not overjoyed at the prospect but waited for a hospital appointment to have procedure done. Long story short, hospital messed up, they gave her the run around for a year and now she says she'll live with it. Hmmm. Mum seems to be allergic to so many chemicals, hair dyes are a no no and so on.

Now getting to my question, sorry for long post. When wearing polish on the fingernails, even on the good ones she needs to take it off within a few hours as she can feel them tightening up as if her nails can't cope with the polish. 1 coat of colour is ok for a few hours but say base, 2 x colour and a top coat would be off within 10 mins.
I was wondering would she have an allergy to a chemical in the polish? No probs with toes though so that's why I ruled allergy out. I think I read on here about CND polish being free of certain chemicals so I'm going to order 1 and try it or is there anything else you would recommend .
It really gets to her, she hates naked nails and the discolouration under the thumbs really upsets her. She's been through so much recently that being able to paint her nails would really give her a pick up.
Thank you in advance.

 

[geeg]

As you say, it seems to me that if she was allergic it wouldn't matter where you put the polish, she would react to it.

A sensitivity is different .. in the case of being sensitive, it is showing that there is something ( achemical or chemicals) there that the nails on the hands don't like and this can turn into an allergy if your mum keeps using polish.

Toe nails are thicker and maybe are not as sensitive to the polish and maybe you mum did not always wear polish on her toes for years like she did on her nails.

In any case Formaldehyde/Formalin is often the culprit when people become sensitive to polish. CND polishes do not contain this so I would give it a try.

As for the problems with the thumbs, you mum really needs to see an expert in 'digits' which would be a Podiatrist. Ordinary GPs are not as well versed in these problems as a podiatrist ... sounds more like a fungal issue to me and they can be very stubborn and take years to get rid of ... get her to book an appointment instead of trying to 'cover up' the problem, she needs to get rid of it.

 

[Nailed.]

Thank you very much for your response Gigi, I will order a CND polish to try. As for her sore thumbs I will MAKE her book an appointment with a private Podiatrist as going down the NHS route has been a bit of a nightmare.