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Doctor Dawn Harper answers all your questions

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WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY FINGERNAILS?

I was very ill a couple of months ago with pneumonia and was in hospital for 10 days, two of which were spent on intensive care. I'm lucky to have made a full recovery, but the weirdest thing has happened to my fingernails. I have horizontal ridges across them, which seem to be growing out. Is this linked to what happened?

They may well be. This sounds like something called Beau's lines, which occur when nails temporarily stop growing. This can happen when a person has a serious illness. We vary as to how quickly nails grow, but as a rough guide, it's about 0.1mm per day, so it can take three to six months for these lines to grow out completely.

Help! She keeps on humming