A US teenager has revealed that she nearly had to have the tip of her finger amputated after getting a cuticle infection from biting her nails.
Lauren Nichols, 18, posted a video on Tik Tok in January warning others against the habit.
"To my fellow nail biters, stop what you're doing. I almost had to get the tip of my finger amputated because I bite my nails," Nichols said.
The student said her ordeal began on January 8 when she woke up with a green spot on her cuticle. She believed it was a bruise and continued with her daily life.
She went on to say on January 9 she had to go back to college, so she went to the doctor.
They prescribed her antibiotics after discovering it was "paronychia", which is a cuticle infection. However, on January 10 the bruise was a lot more swollen.
"The green part had expanded, so the antibiotics weren't working."
Her nail got significantly worse until she decided to pop the swollen area after watching Youtube videos.
But despite, draining the infection, the doctor told Nichols she had to have a therapeutic washout surgery.
Thankfully the early surgical action saved Nichol' finger from amputation.
According to Nichols' doctor, she made a wise decision to visit him early.
"[My doctor] told me that he has to amputate the tips of people's fingers because the infection gets too bad and that I'm lucky I came when I did," she said.
The video has gained over 2 million likes and nearly 22,000 comments.
This is not the first time someone has warned other nail-biters to stop the habit.
In 2018 a 28-year-old man Luke contracted a deadly sepsis, which was randomly triggered after he bit his fingernails.
