About 3 months ago, Clark’s big toenail looked like it was breaking off. Almost like the skin underneath was pushing upwards and cracking the nail.
Since Clark’s immune system was so weak at the time, we needed to see the dermatologist immediately. The fear was that a nail fungus could go into his blood stream, causing an infection. Or that this could be some sort of cancerous growth. Either way, this would in-case turn into a hospital stay with extra antibiotics, fungicides, or possibly surgery.
Thankfully this isn’t the case. He hasn’t had a fever (from this), and we found out it is not a fungus. Unfortunately we can’t seem to determine what is causing the problem! He has had 2 samples taken, and watched for over 5 weeks each. There was no sign of fungus, or any other growth.
Another possibility is that this could be related to his Dyskeratosis. It is common for DKC patients to have nail dystrophy. This usually occurs on more than one toenail though, and looks slightly different.
We have tried anti-fungal cream (2x/ day for 3 weeks), and it looked like it was getting worse. Since then we were told it is not growing into a fungal infection, so I decided to stop completely. This has almost helped it clear up. But not completely. The only thing that seems to help it out is regular baths. But so far, no results. We will have another follow up appointment in 3-6 months to see if anything has changed.
Why all the nasty pictures?
We’ve included detailed pictures as a reference for other parents dealing with DKC. In our experience, there isn’t much visual documentation on how the nails of children with DKC are affected by nail dysplasia. We’re hoping this might provide some guidance for other parents dealing with the disease in their own children.