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Avatar universal

Please help, Brown stripe in finger nail.

Hello, if someone can answer this question I'd be greatly pleased.

My wife has a brown stripe on her nail that has been there even before I met her 4 years ago. I would say it has been there 5 or 6 years. She got it checked out in Peru. The Doctor said if it was cancer she'd already be dead. As mean as it sounds it calmed me down. Then I found out recently it could be melanoma.

So I went online to do some research about it, but I am left in the dark on a few things.

I have seen most of the people with melanoma in their nails have a very brown bottom area of the nail, she doesn't you just see the nail fade away under her light skin. She is hispanic, I heard it is more common to have random brown stripes in darker colored people.

It starts on the corner of her pinky nail, not the thumb, and not in the middle of the nail.

Also some seem to have bruises around the area or big large lumps, she does not have either of those. The finger is painfree as well.

I plan to take her to get checked out, but I was hoping to get a professionals opinion first.

Please help :(
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Avatar universal
It has grown since she first spotted it years ago. It was just a small little black line on the edge of the nail, now it covers a 3rd of the nail. She and I have been together for a little over four years, since I have met her I don't seem to recall it being much bigger if bigger at all. I don't think it has grown at all in the last year.

We plan to get a second opinion soon, what are the minor things? I have looked up everything I could find and found quite a few minor things, but everyone seems to be so stuck on being careful about melanoma, which of course they should. Just scary to hear about all that. I've always hated cancer in every form. Thanks for the reply
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Avatar universal
Pum
You've had a doctor check it out so try to accept their judgement. If you can't then get another opinion but if it hasn't changed over that period of time it won't be anything to worry about. The reason they (nail melanomas) are hard to diagnose are because there are so many other minor things they could be. The minor things are way way more common.
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