Thursday, June 21, 2007

Splitting Fingernails & Osteoporosis

One early warning sign for osteoporosis is vertical splitting of the fingernails. This usually indicates a long-term calcium deficiency. My mother has osteoporosis so it runs in the family, and I have also had these fingernail splits a few times over the past decade. Each time I (eventually) added calcium supplements to my diet and the splitting disappeared in a few months.

These images were taken today, and show my own middle fingernail on the left hand. It was difficult to get a good photo of the fingernail split, so I played with the image color a bit so you can see it better.



Starting today I'm again taking calcuim supplements. The one that works best for me is "Mega Cal" soft chews by Jamieson. 650 mg twice per day.

I'll add new photos every once in a while so you can see the changes to the fingernail over time.

1 comment:

Alicia said...

Finally found what I've been searching for. I have the same problem but the vertical line goes all the way down to the base of my nail and always splits at the top. It's annoying. I'll try the calcium to see if it works. Thanks for posting.