FL PODIATRIST DISCUSSES RUNNER'S TOENAILS

 

 

 

 

Why do runners' toenails tend to fall off? Allan Rothschild, DPM, a podiatrist in Dunedin, Florida, who has been treating Tampa Bay area runners of all ages for years, said it's all that running. Rothschild explained that during the push-off phase of your gait, when one foot is behind you and the other one is striking the ground, the toes on your trailing foot are extended up. When these toes are hyperextended, they hit the toe box of your shoe. Even though your shoe is relatively soft, that contact is a microtrauma. When you’re running five to ten miles per day, or even more in a half or full marathon, those microtraumas can add up.
 
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Dr. Allan Rothschild
 
 
“Runners can experience discolored nails, which is a collection of blood beneath the nail plate (subungual hematoma) as a result of microtrauma to the toe against the ‘shoe box,’” Rothschild said. The bleeding can in turn cause the nail plate to separate from the nail bed and fall off. Merely losing a toenail is not cause for panic. “If you’re a runner, you develop a hematoma underneath the nail plate, and the nail falls off, you’re going to grow another nail back normally,” Rothschild says. “It’s a vicious cycle—it might happen again in six months.”
 
Source: Ally Spiroff, Runner's World [1/10/18]  
 
Courtesy of Barry Block, editor of PM News.  
 
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