Thanks, J!

I am going to try that crazy suggestion, and I will let you know how it
works.  That is the kind of stuff we need to hear.  I have no one around me
to impress either way, but it is like N'Deaye said "who is going to want me
looking or feeling like this?"  It is something most of us single folk feel.

And since you are such a wealth of information (and if you feel up to it, my
dear),  I have little black streaks on my fingernails!  I have had them
coming and going for the better part of a year...felt a little too
"hypochondriacal" to bring it up with my docs...plus I always have so many
other symptoms, it is hard to get them all in.  Well, I saw my doc last
Friday, and I did mention this to her and she looked at them, saying "Well,
you can tell an awful lot from a person's fingernails..."  I was thinking
vitamin deficiency or something.  They are little black things that look
like you got a SPLINTER under your fingernail.  We looked at them together,
and I was saying "the only thing I can think of that would do that is
blood."  She said to me "Those are NOT splinter hemorrhages!!"--assuming,
smart aleck that I am, I would know what that was. "What's a slpinter
hemorrage??" I asked.  She avoided my answer, and I took note.  When I got
home (actually in the middle of the night when I could not
sleep...sleeplessness is part of my whole "syndrome" right now) I looked up
"splinter hemorrage" in my Taber's.  Oh my god.  Indicative of endocarditis.
I did not know what to think.  Once I finally did get out of bed this
morning, I looked on my answering machine and there was a message from the
assistant at my doctor's office.  When I called her, she said "Doctor-----  
has another lab slip for you here to pick up when you have your other
tests."  I asked her "Can you please tell me what test it is?"  She said
"blood cultures."  I went "Oh!  OOOOOOH!...oh my god.  oh. okay."

Blood cultures are used to detect bacteria in the blood, which would
diagnose endocarditis, among other things.  Well, at least she got on the
ball.  As most of you know, I have just had an extensive cardiac workup, but
I never thought my fingernails would be a consideration.  Perhaps the
cardiologist should have looked, but the problem was EKG abnormality, not
fever or anything like that.

So.  After rambling like this, here is my question:  Have any of you ever
had this symptom?  It is right at the tip of the nail bed, and it looks
exactly like if you have ever gotten a splinter under your fingernail.  It
is black, possibly dark brown.  Mine don't have any red. The picture in the
book showed black, brown and red, and larger than mine, but similar enough
to have me worried.

If any of you have had this, do you know of anything else it could be?  I
asked the doc, "maybe this could be a clotting disorder?" But she sort of
shut up on me, and I wasn't real happy about that...

I figure you guys won't shut up on me.  :-)

--Mair

PS:  Rusty stay the f.ck out of this.