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Jul 01, 2023

I had gel nails for years — now I can barely move my hands

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WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A woman left with mangled fingertips following a manicure is desperately trying to nail down the cause of her mystery condition.

Lisa Dewey, 36, had been getting gel manicures for years without any issues — until recently when she developed severe pain and inflammation, and her nails began falling off.

"I worried I would lose the whole finger," the distraught salon customer, from Pattishall, West Northamptonshire, in the United Kingdom, told South West News Service.

The pain started in February, as the mom-of-two noticed her fresh manicure had become inflamed with the polish was peeling away from the nail bed.

At the time, doctors attributed the symptoms to a bacterial infection and Dewey was given a steroid cream and antibiotics to fight it.

The pain and signs of infection seemed to go away, so the hospital custodian got her nails done again in April, deciding to try acrylic nails instead.

Horrifically, within days her nails began to peel away from the nail bed.

Dewey described her skin as like "paper tearing away" from her fingers, leaving her in so much pain that she could "barely" move her hands.

Her concerns were heightened when soon her nail bed turned purple, leading her to suspect she had developed an allergy to nail products.

The ongoing pain is so debilitating she struggles to wash her daughter's hair, hold a pen, wash dishes or even put on a seatbelt, instead relying on her husband Lee, 45, to do many of these tasks for her.

Her inflamed fingertips also curtailed her in her beauty routine, as common skincare and cosmetic products only exacerbate her discomfort.

"This has knocked my confidence so much — I don't normally care what people think of me, but now I hide my hands away," Dewey said.

Now the former manicure enthusiast has vowed to stay away from nail products for good — and warned others of the reactions manicure products can cause.

The mom to two daughters, aged 3 and 12, admitted her confidence has taken a hit from her botched nail job.

"It's just embarrassing to have hands like this," she sadly said, adding it's also impacted her social life. "There's a coronation party this week, and if my hands aren't better, I won't be going."

Dewey hopes to warn others to be careful. "I just want to do my bit in trying to get the word out that things might not be as good as they seem," she said.

Dermatologists have recently reported seeing an increase in allergic reactions to acrylic and gel nails, with some doctors seeing the phenomenon "most weeks," according to a BBC report.

Methacrylate chemicals used in acrylic and gel nail manicures are known to trigger contact allergies, with the British Association of Dermatologists having called the phenomenon an "epidemic" in the UK and Ireland in recent years.

The chemicals can cause a severe, itchy rash anywhere on the body, making the source of the reaction difficult to diagnose, BAD noted. In some cases, people report their nails are loose or falling off.

A 2018 study estimated that 2.4% of people have an allergy to at least one type of the chemicals used in acrylic- and gel-based manicures.