Fall-off toenail is quite common phenomena. Many people experience various injuries which are ended up with falling off toenail. Fungal infection may also cause toenail to come off eventually. Falling off nail does not only look bad, but also causes severe pain and may also lead to infection.

What are the most likely causes of falling off nails?

Falling off nails, especially the toenail is usually caused by injured nail bed. A nail bed is the skin under the nail, which support its position. This nail bed injury may be caused by multiple reasons. These triggers can attacks both the nail and the nail bed. Some nails fall of eventually, while some others might detach spontaneously. Some even require medical surgeries. The most common causes of falling off nails are fungal infection and traumatic injuries.

1. Fungal infection

Fungal infection may affect both nail bed and the nail. This is caused by a microscopic fungal which resides under the nail plate. Fungal infection causes around 50% of entire nail detachment. This fungus also known to cause the athlete’s foot. Some people are more susceptible to this fungal infection, because:

1. They have diabetes or psoriasis
2. They have a weakened immune system genetically or caused by certain other diseases
3. They constantly bite the nails
4. They have severe smoking habit
5. They live with the climate where fungus can easily spread
6. Traumatic injuries

A lot of traumatic injuries involving toenail might happen daily. The injuries can cause spontaneous nail detachment. Yet, it might only wiggle the nail without detaching it from the nail bed. Traumatic injury on toenails is really painful. Initially, it may cause severe bleeding and bruises. Some bad injuries even require the nails to be surgically removed.

Fell of nails might be scary and weird. People might doubt about how well their toenail will regrow after falling off, since all they can spot is the bruised nail bed. In most cases, however, injured nails are likely to regrow.

Will falling off toenail grow back?

Most falling off toenail will indeed grow bask after fungal infection or severe injuries. However, this might take a long time. With the toe, an injured nail will grow back in around 6 month to a year period after detached. However, this might be various among people, depending on some factors. The nail grow from the matrix, which lies beneath the nails. This matrix consists of growing epithelial cells. These cells contain protein and keratin which will harden and form the nail angles which grow. After detached, your nail growth will be influenced by the factors influencing this keratin. Those factors might be age, health, diet, season, and location. Falling off toenail will regrow fast in children between the ages 10 to 14, while in adults this growth might be longer. Similarly, injured toe nail bed might heal slower in adults than children. People with a good health status and diet can also experience a faster regrown toe nail, while people with diabetes or psoriasis might find it slower. The location of the falling off nail will also determine how fast it will regrow. This explains why a detached toe nail grows slower than some detached nails in other locations.

Why the formerly detached toenail grow in a weird shape?

Some people found out that the formerly-detached nail may grow in a weird shape. In fact, this is not a thing to be cautious for. A regrow nail, especially with a big nail bed such as the one with toenail can grow in an unusual shape because the nail bed was injured. As a result, the shape of this nail bed, especially its surface changes. Thus, the keratin which form the new toenail follow the structure of this deformed nail bed. Therefore, a more curly or imbalanced toenail might be formed. This is definitely normal and will not affect entire nail health or function.