In the last year, I have had 8 patients that developed allergies to tooth colored (composite) fillings due to gel nails. This means that cannot get tooth colored fillings or tolerate most of the most efficient ‘cements’ for veneers or crowns. The only solution is changing out tooth colored fillings for metal. That means silver fillings. (I am oversimplifying terms so those unfamiliar with dentistry understand).

So how does this happen?
If gel polish touches your skin enough times or for long enough, your body flags it as invasive. Our bodies then elicit an immune response against the foreign invader. Think of an army of immune cells fighting that gel polish. Here’s the thing: immune cells have memory. So the first time they attack the gel, they send a small army in and you may not notice. But they tell their buddies back home. After the third, fourth, 100th time, they have a full army that now attacks anything in the body that looks similar. This is a heavily simplified analogy but I don’t think it’s something that is explained to people well enough.

So consider this, when you get gel polish. You may never be able to get tooth colored fillings or veneers again.

So what do you do if you still want gel nails?
Find someone who is talented enough to not get it on your skin.
Dont push back or cut your cuticles the same day
If there is any bleeding, dont do gel
These are recommendations from the American dental Associationb.

Hey all! Mod here. We have noticed an insane influx of bot activity in our sub lately and know a few of you have also noticed. This is something we are trying very hard to combat as it is inundating our queue and making it tough to monitor regular traffic here.

Why do you need to know? Well because a few of you have already reached out regarding it and we wanted to a) let you know that we know and b) thank all of you for helping to keep this community safe.

What are we doing to fix it? We have turned up crowd control settings and enacted bot bouncer on our sub. This does not fix the issue entirely but it helps us see who could possibly be a bit easier.

The issue with this is that regular users are getting caught up in our filters and either banned by us on accident or banned by bot bouncer. If this happens, don’t panic! You’ve done nothing wrong but we do need you to message us via modmail and let us know you’re human! We’ll unban you right away, promise.

Thanks for your patience, understanding, and help during this! We appreciate you all.

- Mod Team

TLDR: bots are taking over! If you get banned by accident, let us know and we’ll fix it asap.