Nail Recovery Update, BUT New Damage! 10 April 2015

Hi, everyone! I hope you had a great Easter and got lots of rest, and hopefully got time to do lots of nail art.

I thought I'd better touch base and give you an update on how my nails are recovering after the disaster I told you about in my last blog two weeks ago, and also let you know what happened yesterday - another disaster!

Here are some photos of my damaged nails from 2 weeks ago and how they're recovering.

 

As you can see, the two badly damaged nails on the left hand are starting to recover nicely, and so is the thumb on my right hand.  I have been using an intensive recovery regime on all my nails and my hands since all the damage was done, and it is very encouraging to see that it appears to be working.  For the first week I used pure Jojoba Oil, Revitanail Nourishing Oil, Revitanail Keratin Strengthening Serum and Revitanail Hand & Nail Cream. 

After a week, once my nails had stopped hurting so much, I started on the Revitanail Nail Strengthener program, which involves 2 coats on the first day, 1 coat each day for the next 5 days, removing it on the 7th day, and then repeating this for 3 more weeks.  The whole program takes 28 days, and then you can leave it off for a week or two, and repeat the 28 day program again until you are happy with the strength of your nails.  You can't use nail polish over the treatment, so I'm afraid my nails are totally nude all the time at the moment.

As well as the Nail Strengthener, I have continued to use pure Jojoba Oil, Revitanail Nourishing Oil, Revitanail Keratin Strengthening Serum and Revitanail Hand & Nail Cream as often as I can, and will continue to do so in the future, particularly as it really does appear to be working so well. My husband keeps looking at me and saying "Are you still rubbing your nails?", and I just say to him "Again, darl, again!". Nearly every 30 minutes finds me rubbing one treatment or another into my hands and/or nails.  In fact, I find myself massaging my cuticles even when I'm just sitting reading because it has become such a habit. Some of the skin on my fingers has started to peel off, too, caused by the burning from the acetone I used trying to get the nail glue off my nails and fingers. The tips of some of my fingers are still very tender and quite sore, so I'm having to be really careful what I do each day so no more damage is done.

So, that's the good news!  Now to the disaster last night. When I took the nail strengthener treatment off last night, I discovered that I actually had two more nails that were broken right down below the quick, and I felt physically sick.  I couldn't believe it, even though I had suspected for the last couple of days that one of them may be broken.  So, they have now been filed right back as far as I could, and I also filed back my unbroken nails so that they don't look ridiculous.  The broken nails are really sore, too, because of how far down I had to file them. Here is a photo of my right hand showing the damage, and also how some of my nails have lifted off the nail bed due to the damage done from my chemotherapy treatment last year. Most of the nails that have broken have suffered this damage, and that is why they have broken so far down my nails.

  

Now it's back to the drawing board, and onward and upward, I hope! I'm heartbroken that all this has happened just when my nails were starting to grow, and had started to look quite good when polished.  I didn't get to do an Easter design, which I was really looking forward to doing, and it doesn't look like I'll be doing one for Mother's Day next month, or perhaps even for my birthday in June.  Getting my nails in good, strong condition is more important at this stage, so that is what I am endeavouring to do.

I will be back in a couple of days to show you some of my new polishes that I have been receiving in the mail.  Retail therapy is great when you're feeling miserable, and many of the Indie Polish makers have had sales and special offers on over Easter, so I've been busy checking them all out.  It helps to keep my mind off things, too, which is good.  I only wish I had more money to spend, because, after all, a girl can NEVER have too much polish, can she?

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and for those in Tasmania, make sure you keep warm.  It's going to be a wet, chilly couple of days. Please come back soon to see what I have to share with you, and please let others know about my site if you have enjoyed your visit.

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/

Absolute Disaster on 27 March 2015 - DON'T BUY THIS NAIL GLUE!!!!!!

Yesterday I had an absolute disaster with 3 of my nails which I was trying to patch, using a different nail glue to the one I usually use, and here is how my nails and fingers look today!

As a result of this, I want to advise everyone NOT TO BUY THE NAIL GLUE shown below:

and here's the full story of what happened.

After taking off last week's manicure and the patches I had on three of my nails, I still couldn't cut my nails back because they were broken a long way down the actual nail, and not only on the tip section.  So, I set out to put patches on them again before I put on this week's mani.  I had run out of the glue I had been using, which came with the Manicare Nail Repair Kit I bought months ago, so I decided to use the nail glue shown above, which I had bought to use to attach artificial nail swabs to my nail polish bottle lids before I put them up on the shelves.  It said "Nail Glue", so I presumed it would be safe to use, and I had to make a tiny hole with a sharp needle in the top, so there should have only been a small drop of glue on the index nail on my left hand (the one with breaks on both sides of the nail) when I put it on.  However, that is not what happened.  It spread all over my nail, and onto two of my fingers, and then dried instantly.  My fingers were stuck together, but I managed to get them apart, and managed to finish that patch.

I then spent half an hour trying to get the glue off my fingers with acetone, and still didn't manage to get it all off, but I wanted to go ahead and patch the other two nails that needed repairing, so I decided to finish trying to get it off after I had finished the patches.  I had read during the week that micropore tape from the pharmacy is a good alternative to tea bags to use for patches, so I applied some over the splits on the middle finger on my left hand and the thumb on my right hand.  I filed off the excess bit of the fibreglass tape that I used with the nail glue patch, and smoothed off the surface of the glue.  

Next, I added two coats of Sally Hansen "Hard As Nails" original formula nail hardener to all my nails, waiting for each coat to dry before adding the next one.  I then added one coat of Jordana "Mellow Yellow" to all my nails except for my ring fingers, and one coat of Sinful Colors "White On White" to my ring finger nails.  I was planning to do a gold and green water marble manicure for the Cricket World Cup Final on Sunday, 29 March 2015, in which Australia are playing.  However, when the polish finally dried on the patched nails, I noticed that the polish was really rough on the ones I used the micropore tape on.  So, I decided to remove the micropore patches and do them the same way as the one with the glue, and that's when disaster struck.

The micropore tape nails were easy to clean and remove the tape, but when I tried to do the patch on the first nail, glue went all over my fingers again.  I then tried to add some acetone to a cotton swab to try to get it off, but the acetone went all over the nails on my right hand, and I just burst into tears.  Then I tried to use the acetone to remove the glue from my fingers once again, and most of it just wouldn't shift.  I used the foil method with 100% acetone on the two nails with the glue on, and after 15 minutes they still hadn't shifted, so I added more to them, left the remover on for 15 minutes, and the glue hadn't even budged.  I tried again, and again, and finally managed to get the patch piece off, but the glue underneath still wasn't going to budge.  

Meanwhile, all this time, my finger and nails was burning because of the acetone, so I switched to an acetone-based polish remover, and after about 2 hours I finally managed to remove most of the glue, but in the process the nail on my index finger broke right off, and the other break got worse.  That's when I really gave up, and decided to cut all the broken nails off as carefully as I could, and filed the rest of my nails back a lot so they didn't look ridiculous.  I was really crying my heart out at this stage, because I was watching 9 months of careful nurturing and beautiful manicures going out the window, and my nails looked worse than they did when I first started my blog after the chemotherapy damage.  One of the nails even started bleeding, and you can see how badly the tips of my fingers were damaged by the glue and the acetone.

 

 

So, now I won't be able to do anything but nourish, strengthen and pamper my nails and hands for weeks until they start to recover, and start from scratch again.  I am absolutely heart-broken, and feeling extremely discouraged.  I just wish I could find some glue like the one I got with the Manicare Nail Repair Kit to use with the tea bag patches, but I think the only way I'm going to be able to is to buy a whole new kit, even though I've still got half the fibreglass strips left, and the emery board will last for a long time yet.  

This was a horrible lesson to learn, but I will never put nail glue made for false nails near my nails again, especially the one I tried.  After more than three whole hours just to get the two patches off, plus the time taken to put the base coat and polish on, and then take it off, and still picking glue off my fingers, I guess all I can do is start treating my nails and hands with kid gloves, and use everything in my arsenal to repair the damage.  My first port of call was, of course, my Jojoba Oil, but I have other things I can use, so my next few posts will most likely be updates on how my nails are going and how the different products that I use perform. 

I hope you won't give up on me, and that you will come back again to see how things are going.  If I find anything interesting on my travels around the internet I'll let you know, and will also keep you informed about any new polishes I get while I'm waiting to start polishing my nails again.

Bye for now, and I hope to be back real soon.  Have a wonderful day, and may God bless you.

Hugs

Christine

(Please check out my other blog below, too.)

Words of Life and Hope
http://wordsoflifeandhope.blogspot.com.au/