My toenail fell off last week. Gross, I know; sorry about that. It was far less gross than it sounds, though, and more than anything was confusing. It’s pretty common among runners to talk about gross black toenails falling out after a grueling run, but that’s never been a problem for me. I am a runner, but only in the most literal, technical sense: I am someone who on occasion does run. I am slow; I don’t go great distances; I haven’t even done a fun-run in years; I don’t know my weekly mileage, but I only actually run once or twice a week anymore. I used to do a lot more. I used to run three miles every day (although I’ve always been slow). I ran a half marathon several years ago, but even in the training for that, I never had any trouble with my toenails.
On the other side of the coin, I know people often lose nails after a traumatic injury to the nail bed, like when my dad misjudged a swing with a sledgehammer and hit himself on the foot. I’ve hit my toes on a lot of things in my life, even to the point where I thought for sure I would look down to find my pinky toe dangling by a thread, but it’s never led to a damaged nail that later falls out.
So you can imagine my befuddlement when I was checking my nails to see if they needed trimmed and the nail of my pinky toe just popped off. It didn’t hurt. It hadn’t been bruised or bloodied in the last several months. I haven’t even worn particularly brutal shoes. But that didn’t seem to matter. It just came off and my naked little toe looked back at me as I tried to decide how worried I should be. The best I can guess is that my body saw that I’m about to turn 35 and started doing a little spring cleaning and while clearing out toxins and things it doesn’t need, got a little carried away and accidentally got rid of the toenail too. I mean, who hasn’t accidentally pitched something important in a frenzy of tidying up?
It looks healthy, if not a little unbalanced, but that’s mostly down to the fact that all the other nails are nicely painted and that one doesn’t have anything to paint.
No pictures today, though, because apparently feet are a hot item among internet weirdos, so if that’s you, I guess you just have to use your imagination today.
Anyway, take care of yourself and make sure you don’t have any parts just randomly falling off.
Gross, but hilarious! I find it a good rule to just keep all the body parts I was born with. I’m not doing so well at it, though! 🤣. Here’s to hoping it grows back soon!
Yeah keeping it all is the goal 😂 thanks
I loved the clip of the guy throwing the hammer onto his toe. That is remarkably similar to what I did!
I can imagine! 😖