In late March, I was helping take down the winter covers that protect trees and houses from heavy snow.
Two of us took off the heavy pieces together, calling out to each other, and loaded them onto a car. We did that again and again. Maybe our timing was off at some point. I may have dropped something on my foot without noticing.
I was working hard and not thinking of anything else, so to be honest, I do not remember well.
I came home and took off my socks before my bath. I thought, “Something hurts.” I looked, and the second toe of my right foot was in bad shape. Even though I was wearing safety shoes.
Under the nail, it was all black. It is what people call a subungual hematoma, a pool of blood under the nail. The pain went away in a few days, but the black nail stayed.
After 3 Months, Finally 1 mm
About 3 months have passed since then. When I look at the base of the nail, a new nail is finally showing, about 1 mm.
To be honest, it is slow.
People generally say a toenail grows 1 to 1.5 mm a month. 1 mm in 3 months means my nail is slower than that. Is it because I am in my 60s? Or is it because of the injury? I do not really know.
The nail on this toe is about 6 mm long. If it grows 1 mm a month, the math says the whole nail will be replaced in 6 more months. But in reality it may take longer.
Will It Heal or Not?
When I looked it up, I found that blood under a toenail “can take 1 to 2 years” to clear.
1 to 2 years. Does it really take that long?
When I was young, maybe I would not have cared. But in my 60s, the question crosses my mind: will it really heal? I can feel that my power to recover has gone down.
I still do not know if the nail will come off. Will the new nail push it out, or will it come off before that? All I can do is watch how it goes.
Measuring My Recovery in My 60s
Since it happened anyway, I decided to keep a record.
General data says 1 to 1.5 mm a month. My own measurement so far is 1 mm in 3 months. Will this gap get smaller, or stay the same?
How long does it take for a nail to be replaced in my 60s? The answer is on my own foot.
I will report again.
Update, July 19, 2026: 2 mm in 4 Months. The Pace Went Up
3 weeks have passed since then. I measured the white part at the base of the nail. It was 2 mm.
About 4 months since the injury. It was 1 mm in 3 months, so the math says it grew 1 mm in these 3 weeks. In a month, that is 1.4 mm. Before I knew it, it had caught up with the usual “1 to 1.5 mm a month.”
Maybe the first 3 months were slow because it was right after the injury, and the place that makes the nail was not in good condition yet. This is only a guess by someone who is not an expert.
The black part is moving little by little toward the tip, as if pushed out from the base. So far, there is no sign it will come off.
▶ See the real photo (if painful pictures bother you, you do not have to open it)
About 4 mm is left. At this pace, about 3 more months. The math says the whole nail will be clean again within this year.
My power to recover in my 60s is not as bad as I thought.
Update, August 1, 2026: It Came Off While I Was in the Bath
At night, I was taking a bath. Then the black nail came off my toe.
About 4 and a half months since the injury. Just recently, in the July 19 update, I wrote “So far, there is no sign it will come off” and “The math says the whole nail will be clean again within this year.” It came off 2 weeks later. My math was wrong.
When I looked at my toe, a new nail was growing underneath. It seems the dead nail was pushed out by this new nail and came off. This is only how it looks to someone who is not an expert.
Near the tip, some small pieces of the old nail are still left.
▶ See the real photo of the nail that came off (if painful pictures bother you, you do not have to open it)
If you came here to find out “When does blood under a toenail heal?”, here is my answer for now. In my case, about 4 and a half months after I hit it, the whole black nail came off.
But this is not the end. It will still take time for the new nail to grow all the way to the tip of my toe. I will watch it until then and report again.
Another thing I have written about my body in my 60s:
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