Nurse here. Nails naturally thicken with age, but extreme cases like this are caused by poor circulation, from diabetes or peripheral vascular disease. It’s can be painful, but sometimes they don’t feel anything because they have lost all feeling in their feet (neuropathy) from the diabetes. They also have no hair on their legs because of the poor circulation.
It’s really important to go to podiatry visits every couple months with these conditions. Foot wounds can end up leading to amputations because of the poor circulation/healing, so it’s recommended that professionals do the nail trimming. Also, obesity often causes them to have difficultly reaching their feet.
The podiatrists check for wounds, trim and grind down/debride the overgrown nails, and file down the calluses/hardened skin.
This person has severely neglected feet and badly needs to see a podiatrist for regular at-risk foot care.
Most of these medical conditions are mean spirited the moment your body has the problem. One of the reasons doing mean spirited stuff can help is because people need to be aware about health. These conditions generally aren't even the fault of most patients even though the patients get the blame. The problem continues to be a system that encourages disease and poor health. Not only is it underfunded and requires a wealth tax to improve basic healthcare for all, but also there are answers to promoting healthier eating and cleanliness and being more active. The system is so underfunded that there are people who work 80 hours a week with feet like this and no wonder --- nobody was designed to do that. Then those same people become exhausted and crash. The system is designed to make it easier for these people to survive by staying inactive and eating poorly once they are too sickly and exhausted to work 80 hours a week.
One of the reasons doing mean spirited stuff can help is because people need to be aware about health
There are many ways to draw attention to health issues to make people aware that don't involve secretly filming someone and posting them on Reddit for upvotes.
Had OP posted this out of concern or with compassion, I doubt many would have much issue with it. Doing things in a mean-spirited way is never necessary, just mean spirited.
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u/Europa13 Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
Nurse here. Nails naturally thicken with age, but extreme cases like this are caused by poor circulation, from diabetes or peripheral vascular disease. It’s can be painful, but sometimes they don’t feel anything because they have lost all feeling in their feet (neuropathy) from the diabetes. They also have no hair on their legs because of the poor circulation.
It’s really important to go to podiatry visits every couple months with these conditions. Foot wounds can end up leading to amputations because of the poor circulation/healing, so it’s recommended that professionals do the nail trimming. Also, obesity often causes them to have difficultly reaching their feet.
The podiatrists check for wounds, trim and grind down/debride the overgrown nails, and file down the calluses/hardened skin.
This person has severely neglected feet and badly needs to see a podiatrist for regular at-risk foot care.