My nails fall apart - what's a natural way to strengthen my finger (and toe) nails?

I've probably tried everything already, diet, supplements, lotions, all the recommendations.  A lot of them work to some degree, but lately, my nails have been worse than ever.  They tear off beneath the quick which is very painful, especially when it snags on clothing or a sheep.  

But it got me to thinking, I'm probably not the only one with these issues so why not gather up some ideas of natural ways to strengthen nails?  

The one that works best for me is to eat jello made from bone marrow gelatine.  The Halal ones seem to be the best.  But it takes about 2-3 months for it to show any benefit.  

What are your suggestions?  

Have you tried horsetail? And have you looked at why your body might be exhibiting that symptom? Peradventure do you have other health issues that might need addressing and your nails are telling you this?

Angela Wilcox wrote:Have you tried horsetail?

Can you tell us more about how to use it for strengthening nails?

Horsetail is high in silica, which strengthens hair and nails. It is also good for bone health.

Here is a link to a more detailed description of its properties and benefits. Ignore any product ads and read the article for general knowledge.

https://www.euphoricherbals.com/blogs/news/benefits-of-horsetail

Nails are extremely telling when it comes to body health/degeneratives. Questions an herbalist might ask, have you been diagnosed with osteoporosis? Are you retaining fluid? How’s your blood pressure? Have you had blood work lately that identified any deficiencies in vitamins and minerals? Calcium in particular? The B vitamins? Zinc? Iron? How is your thyroid?

Nail issues are often harbingers of others things going off in the body.

Have you tried bone broth or gelatin?

I like the information from Wellness Mama who recommends pasture-raised gelatin:

   Supports skin, hair, and nail growth
   Good for joints and can help joint recovery
   Can help tighten loose skin (like the kind you get after having six babies in nine years…)
   Can improve digestion since it naturally binds to water and helps food move more easily through the digestive tract

https://wellnessmama.com/health/gelatin-uses/  

Maybe try a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a liquid of choice. Hunny used to play guitar at coffee houses. He does not use a pick, just nails and fingers once the nails wore down mid performance. He had started ACV for other benefits, and found that his nails grew faster, and stronger.

He drinks it in a cup of water. It's a bit rough on my throat that way. I hide it in orange juice or sprite, something already acidic, it goes down easier for me.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Maybe try a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a liquid of choice. Hunny used to play guitar at coffee houses. He does not use a pick, just nails and fingers once the nails wore down mid performance. He had started ACV for other benefits, and found that his nails grew faster, and stronger.

He drinks it in a cup of water. It's a bit rough on my throat that way. I hide it in orange juice or sprite, something already acidic, it goes down easier for me.

With an equal part of honey, stirred into ice water, it becomes a pleasant, sweet-tart thirst quencher - a different flavor of lemonade, sort of, and is quite nice, in summer. But, I can't do it straight up or just in water, either.

Angela Wilcox wrote:...
Nails are extremely telling when it comes to body health/degeneratives. Questions an herbalist might ask, have you been diagnosed with osteoporosis? Are you retaining fluid? How’s your blood pressure? Have you had blood work lately that identified any deficiencies in vitamins and minerals? Calcium in particular? The B vitamins? Zinc? Iron? How is your thyroid?

Nail issues are often harbingers of others things going off in the body.

When your nail shows it, the health problem was already there for some time.
This explains too why it takes some months before there is any improvement when you start eating/drinking certain foods as a remedy. The nail that you see at the outside doesn't change anymore. New nail material needs to grow from inside. Remedies can help the new nail grow stronger, but not the part that has already grown at the outside of your finger.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Angela Wilcox wrote:...
Nails are extremely telling when it comes to body health/degeneratives. Questions an herbalist might ask, have you been diagnosed with osteoporosis? Are you retaining fluid? How’s your blood pressure? Have you had blood work lately that identified any deficiencies in vitamins and minerals? Calcium in particular? The B vitamins? Zinc? Iron? How is your thyroid?

Nail issues are often harbingers of others things going off in the body.

When your nail shows it, the health problem was already there for some time.
This explains too why it takes some months before there is any improvement when you start eating/drinking certain foods as a remedy. The nail that you see at the outside doesn't change anymore. New nail material needs to grow from inside. Remedies can help the new nail grow stronger, but not the part that has already grown at the outside of your finger.

We can often see this kind of problem reflected in the hair, too. Dryness, oilyness, becoming brittle, dull, frizzy, etc. We often think of these as issues from the environment, but even more often, they're from issues with our diet, general or even specific health difficulties, gut microbiome, etc.

I wonder if something with your digestion is inhibiting the absorption of minerals? I know that when my husband's Crohn's was really bad, his iron levels got insanely low, even when eating liver multiple times a week. He ended up needing iron infusions just to get him back on track.

I wonder if there's other ways that circumvent the digestive system for you to absorb the necessary vitamins. I know there's multiple ways to absorb magnesium topically (Epsom salt baths, magnesium oil), but I don't know what minerals nails and hair need. What minerals do nails need?

I know my nails also tend to crack if I haven't been drinking enough water, but I'm thinking your issue might be bigger than just that.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
When your nail shows it, the health problem was already there for some time.
This explains too why it takes some months before there is any improvement when you start eating/drinking certain foods as a remedy. The nail that you see at the outside doesn't change anymore. New nail material needs to grow from inside. Remedies can help the new nail grow stronger, but not the part that has already grown at the outside of your finger.

So true.
Any change I make, the doctor says give it 3-6 months before deciding if it works or not.  My nails grow out in 3 months, but according to the internet, it takes 6 months for most people to renew their nails.  

Nicole Alderman wrote:I wonder if something with your digestion is inhibiting the absorption of minerals? I know that when my husband's Crohn's was really bad, his iron levels got insanely low, even when eating liver multiple times a week. He ended up needing iron infusions just to get him back on track.

I wonder if there's other ways that circumvent the digestive system for you to absorb the necessary vitamins. I know there's multiple ways to absorb magnesium topically (Epsom salt baths, magnesium oil), but I don't know what minerals nails and hair need. What minerals do nails need?

I know my nails also tend to crack if I haven't been drinking enough water, but I'm thinking your issue might be bigger than just that.

My nails tend to crack as well, and I am quite often dehydrated. My mother's nails were quite strong, and when she would do a lot of chores requiring wet hands, she could notice an increase in length as soon as the next day. So, quite possibly the dehydration and brittleness are related (and many of the remedies mentioned are liquid/moist as well the other stuff they provide). Soaking might be a way to both soothe your hands now, but also to enable regrowth to occur more quickly and incorporate the other "stuff" you might be doing along the way?

Eat things, steal their powers. Maybe I should switch to gummy bears, they're gelatin, right?

So I have really, really dry hands and my cuticles crack and bleed. then i pick at them and it turns into a really nasty situation.
I am a huge fan of hand creams/ointments/treatments, and I notice when I am religious about them, my nails are also a lot stronger. I spend my free time scrabbling in the garden and then knitting, so any snags and rips are not only frequent but noticed immediately (and followed by lots of swearing, if I'm knitting).
I have tried everything you could imagine. Bag balm was pretty good, and I sometimes mix something like propolis with vaseline (almost as good). But tallow works just as well, and cocoa butter type stuff too. Cheap cream (I get from my mother's junk drawer when I visit) works okay too-- it seems to be just a question of putting on something regularly.
I don't know how easy it is to make lanolin, but that seems like a good option, considering you have sheep. I usually put this stuff on at night before going to bed, rub into the cuticles and around the nails. Some people put on gloves, I don't, but if you're using tallow or something sticky you might wish to.

My daughter takes b vitamins and collagen for her hair and nails, and silica (horsetail above). I have enough vitamin drama to keep track of so I skip that, but it might be worth a try.

Tereza Okava wrote:So I have really, really dry hands and my cuticles crack and bleed. then i pick at them and it turns into a really nasty situation.
I am a huge fan of hand creams/ointments/treatments, and I notice when I am religious about them, my nails are also a lot stronger. I spend my free time scrabbling in the garden and then knitting, so any snags and rips are not only frequent but noticed immediately (and followed by lots of swearing, if I'm knitting).
I have tried everything you could imagine. Bag balm was pretty good, and I sometimes mix something like propolis with vaseline (almost as good). But tallow works just as well, and cocoa butter type stuff too. Cheap cream (I get from my mother's junk drawer when I visit) works okay too-- it seems to be just a question of putting on something regularly.
I don't know how easy it is to make lanolin, but that seems like a good option, considering you have sheep. I usually put this stuff on at night before going to bed, rub into the cuticles and around the nails. Some people put on gloves, I don't, but if you're using tallow or something sticky you might wish to.

My daughter takes b vitamins and collagen for her hair and nails, and silica (horsetail above). I have enough vitamin drama to keep track of so I skip that, but it might be worth a try.

Of all of the bases you mentioned, tallow is the one closest to the human-produced, and as such, is the fastest to absorb into the skin. For those wanting to avoid animal products, the next best would be macadamia nut oil mixed in equal parts(by weight) with either mango butter or shae butter. An infusion of calendula, rose, lavender (or any combination of those) made with either the tallow or the macadamia nut oil, especially a bit of frankincense oil added, will create an incredibly effective healing balm that is great for the skin, as well as working much like neosporin - and for many of us, without the extreme allergic reaction to the neosporin. It will be very soft, if not more of a thick liquid that will absorb into the skin rather quickly. If you want it to also work as a protective barrier against moisture loss, or as a pre-gardening/working treatment, adding a bit of beeswax (or carnauba, to keep it vegan), will accomplish that.

Drink bamboo tea.  The bamboo leaves that the tea is made from are high in silica.

I too have problems with my nails flaking and splitting.

I have been unable to determine the underlying cause but find that daily use of my homemade salve made with 4 parts dehydrated comfrey leaves and roots that have been cold steeped in extra virgin olive oil, to 1 part beeswax really helps make my nails less brittle.

If I rub it over my nails and into my cuticles, I don't get as many hangnails.

The salve is absorbed quickly and isn't greasy.

My nails have tended to be sturdy but after I made a temporary change to my diet many years ago, I have had two nails that split consistently and it drives me crazy.

I agree with all of the posts about hydrating and moisturizing hands, cuticles, and nails, and I find that doing that consistently is way more effective than doing it sporadically, so a nightly routine is really beneficial to keeping the nicks and breaks from starting. Mine tend to be worse in the winter when my keratin is all parched.

However, when your nails are really soaked (ESPECIALLY if they have been dehydrated), the layers tend to swell and separate and get really soft and fragile. So doing jobs where you hands are in liquid or where you are constantly washing them can make them really vulnerable to splitting and breaking if you are then doing other rough jobs afterward, or even something like washing dishes and then trying to play finger style guitar.  So if you're in a phase where your nails are bothering you anyway, it might help to wear gloves when doing wet work, at least to just get through with less wear and tear.

If I never reach into a bag and snag that minuscule crack in a nail *shudder* to rip it wide open for the rest of my life, it will not be too long for me.
And yes, nail polish does help a lot

I just started using a small amount of castor oil rubbed into my nail bed and cuticles. It absorbs really quickly and has already seems like it is helping combat dryness and flaking.

What you need to do will depend in part on how exactly your nails are brittle. It sounds like you may have a similar problem to me, with delamination of the karatin at the edges of the nails, which then results in tears in from the side. Here's a good scientific paper describing different underlying forms of nail fragility.

The most important thing is to stop the damage from getting worse. Avoid getting your hands soaked and then doing abrasive/stressing work -- this makes them much more likely to develop splits/cracks. Trim off as much of the hanging off bits as possible -- try to cut cracking nail edges early, when they haven't reached the nail bed. If you're doing a lot of manual work, wrap the finger in a plaster, use a thimble, whatever you have to do to prevent further catching and tearing happening and making it worse. If you have a crack that has reached the nail bed, it can be very unpleasant!  I never use nail polish, but I make an exception for these cracks. I applied clear nail polish right around the crack and found this to be effective in stopping the crack from spreading and buying some time to heal.

And the healing is the hard part! The growth plate (the little whitish crescent at the base of the nail bed, right under the cuticle) is the only part of the fingernail that's alive. For any successful treatment, you'll need to wait until the nail fully grows out to see any effect (and as others have pointed out, this can take 3-6 months, depending on how fast your nails grow).

That said, once you've dealt with triage, addressing the underlying symptoms is the next step. For me, I had a moderate-to-serious calcium deficiency and hadn't been getting enough protein in my diet. Calcium, magnesium, Vitamin D and zinc all work together in several metabolic pathways -- if you have a deficiency in one, you may not be able to fully absorb the others, and can then have a variety of vague symptoms. When you look at supplements for minerals, avoid the oxides (e.g. magnesium oxide), carbonates (e.g. calcium carbonate) and other inorganic compounds (e.g. zinc sulphate) as they are absorbed very poorly. If you have digestive issues, they may be absorbed even more poorly than for the average person. Try instead to find easy-to-absorb versions that are not inorganic -- calcium citrate, magnesium malate, zinc gluconate, etc. You can even make your own calcium citrate by washing, heating, drying, and finely powdering eggshell and adding it to lemon juice.

Making sure you're getting quality, easy-to-digest proteins is another issue. Bone marrow broth is great. Broth made with lots of tendons and cartilage is also very good. Lots of recent work has also found that collagen is an excellent dietary protein -- great news for people who like to eat their fish or chicken skin-on. Plain gelatine (or Jell-o) is also great -- there are heaps of delicious French dishes that use savoury gelatine if you want to change things up -- look up "aspic recipe" if you want a fun culinary rabbit hole!

Biotin (B7) is also important -- you can get good amounts from walnuts and especially liver. If, like me, you're not a liver fan, making homemade pate is easy, and makes it a lot easier to eat, and increases the bioavailability of the fat-soluble vitamins you need.

It's also worth noting that it might be a combination of diet and other factors (aging, winter, inflammation, stress, metabolic syndrome, etc), but having sufficient micronutrients in your diet can help give your body some slack in dealing with those other factors. Best of luck, and I hope you heal soon!

i thought of this thread recently when talking to someone who recommended the "japanese manicure" as good grooming as well as strengthening for nails, which is always useful. it involves crazy moisturizing, pushing back the cuticles, filing/buffing with an abrasive, then buffing to shine and more moisture.
I came home and did some research and did it myself and i'm pretty pleased with the result. it leaves a shiny surface with no varnish, a smooth surface and edges that won't snag or cut, and it looks really nice. Gives a good break from any sort of products, and reminds you to use that moisturizer regularly. Even better, I could do it with stuff I had at home (there are "special" products but i made my own abrasive paste with food-grade plaster powder, baking soda, olive and essential oils, and I had a few nail files and buffers already). Suitable for all kinds of people's hands, and hopefully all the attention will help the nails grow stronger. Might be worth investigating.

I would suggest taking omega-three vitamins or better eating foods high in omega threes.

https://permies.com/t/210565/Understanding-omega-es

And a couple herbs to drink twice a day  as tea, nettles and gotu kola.  

These are also good for skin and hair.  I started drinking them for fascia repair, and got additional benefits.  My nails are stronger and grow faster.

I’m curious about the Japanese manicure!

Wow, tea tree oil on a regular basis sounds like it would be quite drying if used without diluting it first.

Very interesting posts, and good information.
My nails started splitting several years ago. First the right index finger. There is a split in the nail bed and so the nail never gets beyond. Then recently one thumb nail on one side, then the other, (both thumbs split at the side) and the left index finger took on the same habit as the right.
I agree that there is something internally wrong. I do have all sorts of immune markers - IMO it is the inflammation and havoc caused by tick borne infections that I have had for over 20 years. I am mostly asymptomatic except that I have had abnormal inflammation markers (they thought Lupus) and now have developed rheumatoid arthritis.
My diet is lacking in fruits and vegetables, although I eat well and home cook all my food- just not enough of these good things as I am a city dweller and all the produce where I live tastes awful.(I know, join a CSO ) I do eat a lot of steamed greens such as collards, turnips and the like.
One (very expensive) product I do know to help nail growth is called Creme Abricot by Christian Dior. I am too lazy to apply it nightly but plan to try to remember. Although pricey, it lasts forever as it is a thick cream. If one were to do it correctly, it is to be massaged into the cuticle bed nightly and one might use cotton gloves. In my youth, when such things seemed important I used it with success.
I have upped my Biotin, take several daily supplements and collagen in my one cup of coffee.
Planning a gut reset which will include fermented foods, specific microbes, allicin pills and  juicing beets, cabbage along with a smoothie to which I will add horsetail, gotu kola (thanks to suggestion posted here)  and a vegetables and fruits since I lack those in my diet. I did show my rheumatologist and she just referred me to dermatology. Thanks for all the valuable suggestions.

No expert of course but I do study a lot of info so I'll chime in in case it can help. The two things I'd focus on first are gut health as you mentioned and also blood health, there are teas and other things with ingredients good for the blood that you should start taking regularly for a while. First things first though, if you want to do a gut reset I highly suggest looking into intermittent fasting 18 hours a day for 2 days a week (you can look up the different benchmarks of what happens in your body per how many hours you fast and 18 is kind of a sweet spot if your wanting to fix up gut health). I also suggest the 30 minute a day yoga squat challenge(look it up) for at least 1 month as it's likely you'd benefit in better blood flow gained from loosening hinge points on your body, bonus is you benefit a lot from this and will feel younger in a way (EVERYBODY ON THIS SITE WHO HAS BACK PAIN WHILE WORKING SHOULD LOOK INTO DOING THIS 1 MONTH 30 MINUTE SQUAT CHALLENGE, sorry for caps but I've not been here long and have seen quite a few sore back posts). As for function ability with the condition trying to do work I suggest buying cheap large gauze pads and cutting to custom size your self and pairing with athletic tape, athletic tape is similar to medical tape but with stronger adhesive and can handle a work day. Ingredients I suggest to seek out are Moringa, and Anise seed.

One thing I do that helps me end up taking in all the herbs I need to take, is to mix them all together, and include some coffee, some black tea, and a lot of roasted chicory root.  It ends up to be a bitter drink not unlike coffee or tea.  I have various mushrooms in it, hawthorne, ginkgo, stragalus, ashwaghanda, turmeric, black pepper.

It’s not that I am recommending these herbs for your condition, it’s just a good example of how simple it can be when you’re wanting to take more herbs in a day than you can drink cups of tea.

I will say though that chicory root has a lot of inulin which feeds the desireable gut microbes.  I drink mine with milk!

Great advice.   Thanks everyone.   And keep it coming as it makes a great resource for the future.

Mine ended being a symptom of life threatening mineral deficiencies,  most notably iron.  Had to spend a day in hospital with an iv to get my levels up again. A few months later and they stopped weakening and now it's still weaker than ideal, but no where near as bad.

So glad I mentioned it to my doctor and got the bloodwork done.

Great news,R.  I wonder, was the iron replacement the cure through the production of more hemoglobin, and therefore more oxygenation at your nailbeds, or because it’s a building block itself for the bails.

You may not want to share, but I am thinking there may have been many other things going on physiologically that were due to the low iron.

Glad to hear the treatment worked well for your health. Have you nails improved more ever since?

I had observed weaker nails this year. Multi vitamins helped somewhat but sulfur supplement worked significantly: nails are thicker and stronger, nail beds more filled and the half moons are back. Afterall, disulfide bonds are important for the integrity of kerakins. Maybe it's not a coincidence I saw sulfur deficiency in my garden plants too. Even plants without typical symptoms responded to the application of Epson salt ( a second year old peach tree resumed growth with just 1g S added!). This really prompted me to look closely at nutrient balance from food and work on remineralize my soil.

They got great for a while, lovely and strong, but it's starting to get bad again,  so I'm going to ask the pharmacy for some iron tablets to see if that will fix it.

Getting bloodwork done is difficult these days.  If we don't have a smart phone, the wait is about 4 to 6 hours.  If one can find parking.  So testing by treatment is what I'm trying next.

Greetings from a cloudy snowy day in the high western Colorado desert to R on the wet coast!

I just tapped out a reply and my phone threw it away before I could post. This time I will summarize: I have had weak nails most of my life. When I had plantar fasciitis, I took goto kola and nettles to support the fascia.  My nails grew so strong I had to cut them. Before they broke so frequently that just keeping the ragged edges trimmed off was enough.

You have mentioned an iron deficiency I think. I don’t know about the connection between iron and breaking nails. I don’t know if there is iron present in the herbs I mentioned. The symptoms I know of that result from iron deficiencies are anemia, lack of energy, getting tired way too easily. Being out of breath, doing things you used to do easily. I think if I suspected any kind of anemia in myself, I would check the inside of my eyelids and mouth the way we do on our sheep and goats, and pay careful attention to energy levels.  Lack of iron can kill you.  Too much iron is as bad!

If there is anemia. I think I would be looking into folacin and or folic acid, which come from foliage and  B-12 vitamin levels which primarily come from animal proteins.

18 months after the wonderful, tough nails, mine have begun to split and tear again and I have brought back the nettle and goto kola tea.  I make them very strong. Add some milk and drink it twice a day.  I am thinking vegetable broth when I make it, not a lightly flavored cup of hot water with milk and honey!  

I am hoping this provides me with adequate folacin, folic acid.

I have thought about sprouting various seeds to get more foliage as leafy greens can be hard to find and cost prohibitive this time of year.

A long time ago when I was a child, people used to drink Knox gelatin to strengthen their nails. I never hear about that anymore, but  it may help. Perhaps the gelatin collagen from the bones in making bone broth might fulfill that.

I am sorry for the challenges involved in getting blood levels tested.  It’s nice to know for sure on such things.

In the meantime, with limited internet during snow storms, these are my thoughts, in case they will be helpful as you work this puzzle.

Best wishes for a workable solution, soon.

r ranson wrote:
Mine ended being a symptom of life threatening mineral deficiencies,  most notably iron.  

Have you considered dehydrating greens that are high in iron such as kale, silver beet, spinach etc and making into a powder that can be added to your cooking or in smoothies?

Thekla, the dehydrated powder might be an option for you in winter?

Would kale orsilverbeet (chard) continue to grow through your winters?

Megan, yes, in a green house I could grow them, and I have one😊

But I just got here in September, the green house and house garden are full of strange “planting mix “.  It appears to be rice hulls and perlite.  Devoid of nutrients and any sign of fertility or supportive soil biome, micro or otherwise.  And much evidence that historical practhe practices  were “conventional “

The structure wasn’t really weather proof.  I think they just used it to start the hot weather vegetables.

I have nettle plants growing in there, but they went dormant.  Started lettuce and arugula seeds, but they aren’t doing very well.  I have done many repairs to get better heat retention etc, but for me, the first year in a new place is best utilized as a discovery process

I do have dried nettle, dried gotu kola, dried spinach.  I had frozen kale, frozen spinach, grozen beet greens, but use them all

Next year I should be in better shape😊

Anemia is pretty common in my family and used to be the number one killer.  There's a part near where the small intestines begin that is especially prone to inflammation and when that happens, we don't absorbed the minerals from the food (or vitamin pills).  

It's kind of funny, because when it's doing fine, we tend to absorbed too much of the same minerals, especially iron and B-vits.  

What I need to do is go back to weekly liver and onions in a cast iron pan and a balsamic glaze.  If I can find good quality liver again.  

r ranson wrote:Anemia is pretty common in my family and used to be the number one killer.  There's a part near where the small intestines begin that is especially prone to inflammation and when that happens, we don't absorbed the minerals from the food (or vitamin pills).  

It's kind of funny, because when it's doing fine, we tend to absorbed too much of the same minerals, especially iron and B-vits.  

What I need to do is go back to weekly liver and onions in a cast iron pan and a balsamic glaze.  If I can find good quality liver again.  

We’re all pulling for you, R!

When all else fails, I get high quality meats and sea food from “butcher box” but they don’t deliver outside the USA’s  “lower 48”.  There  are similar companies in your region that came up when I searched… One  has beef and pork liver (I think it says it’s high quality) the pork liver is 1$ less per pound. Both are less than $5.00 per pound

I hope that helps