We visited a dermatologist today for a second opinion on Zee Yau’s nail. Her nail on her middle finger lacks lustre and is becoming very rough. Initially, I thought it was due to abrasion resulting from playing with sand. However, I realised that it has gotten worse lately. I had a GP seen her last week, he didn’t say much about it except telling me to keep her hands dry and said it will take a long time to recover. Zeeyau was prescribed a cream to apply. My guess is the GP himself wasn’t too sure what was wrong.

I wasn’t very confident about the GP’s diagnosis (or no diagnosis). My brother then recommended me to visit Dr Goh S.K. clinic at Paragon, saying that he is very experienced and charges very reasonably. We made an appointment to see him very quickly. True to what my bro. said, his clinic is really those no frill kind compared to the other clinics around that look expensive, posh, tendy, high class or whatever decor.

Dr Goh diagnosed Zeeyau condition to be the Twenty-nail Dystrophy. Following the diagnosis, he gave me a little education on the condition, showing me books and asked me to read the description of that condition.

He said such condition usually occur in childhood. Early symptoms are small spots on the nails, which will slowly join together to form longitudinal ridges that makes the nails look rough. He found small spots of Zeeyau’s nails and the badly affected nails fits the description of the condition. The cause of such condition is unknown, and there is no known medical treatment. Well, the good news is, it is not fatal and would not affect her health in any way. It might go away when she grows older, hopefully that wouldn’t take too many years.

I was told to stop applying the cream since it has nothing to do with fungus infection. However, Zeeyau wants to continue with it, believing that it will help her nails recover by Christmas. I told her it might take 2 or more Christmas before it will return to normal.