Gabby Swierzewski had been biting her nails for as long as she could remember, a habit that had followed her since childhood and rarely caused anything more than minor discomfort. But in early February 2026, something began to feel different. What she initially brushed off as a routine annoyance quickly escalated into a frightening and painful medical ordeal. The story she later shared with PEOPLE magazine quickly went viral, and for good reason.
“This started on Feb. 6; in the beginning, it started as a hangnail and was extremely painful. Hangnails are a common occurrence for me, so naturally I thought it would pass, as I have been biting my nails since I was 8 years old,” Swierzewski told PEOPLE. Within just one day, her finger had become severely swollen, prompting her to call her primary care physician. She was seen on February 10 and walked away with a prescription for antibiotics and a medicated ointment intended to treat what appeared to be a manageable infection.
Despite following the prescribed treatment, her condition did not improve. On February 12, she visited an emergency clinic that specialized in ingrown nail care, hoping to get more targeted help. The attempt to address the problem did not go as planned. “They tried to open the abscess and cut under the nail, but couldn’t get anything but blood,” Swierzewski explained, adding that the clinic then prescribed her a second antibiotic.
By Valentine’s Day, the situation had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Swierzewski, who works as a restaurant manager, had been powering through long shifts despite the growing pain in her finger. When she finally removed the bandage late that night, her finger had turned a deep purple and was throbbing intensely. Still, she pushed through another shift the following day, determined to manage the pain on her own.
That determination eventually gave way when the pain became too unbearable to ignore. “I woke up crying and to the point where I passed out,” she recalled, describing the morning of February 16. She drove herself to the emergency room at 6:30 in the morning and was admitted immediately. Doctors lanced her finger and drained multiple abscesses that had developed beneath the skin, but even after the procedure, the swelling persisted, leading them to refer her to a specialist.
The specialist’s assessment was deeply alarming. He reportedly told Swierzewski that hers was “the worst case he had ever seen in someone so young.” She was then rushed into an emergency irrigation and debridement procedure performed under general anesthesia, which required a roughly three-quarter-inch incision to fully clean out the infection. Tissue samples were sent to a laboratory and blood tests were ordered to determine whether the infection had reached the bone, with doctors raising the possibility that she could lose her nail or even her finger.
@gabbyswierzewski_ nail biting did this #fyp #foryoupage #paronychia #er ♬ original sound – arisa 🤩
Fortunately, those fears did not come to pass. At a follow-up appointment, doctors confirmed that no additional surgery or amputation would be necessary. The physician who examined her at that visit reportedly remarked on just how dramatically swollen her finger had become. Swierzewski shared her experience on TikTok, where her videos under the hashtag “paronychia” quickly amassed attention and sparked widespread conversation about a habit most people consider harmless.
Her story serves as a stark reminder that nail biting, while extremely common, is not without real medical risk. The mouth harbors a range of bacteria that can be introduced into the skin around the nail through even the smallest opening, creating conditions where an infection can take hold and spiral fast. What starts as a minor irritation can rapidly progress, especially in cases where early treatment does not fully address the underlying problem.
Paronychia is the medical term for an infection of the skin surrounding a fingernail or toenail and is one of the most frequently seen hand conditions by doctors. It can be acute, developing quickly over a matter of days, or chronic, building more slowly over weeks or months. Acute paronychia is most commonly caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and is often triggered by nail biting, hangnail picking, or any trauma to the skin around the nail. Symptoms typically include redness, swelling, warmth, and pain around the nail, sometimes progressing to a pus-filled abscess. Treatment usually involves warm water soaks, topical or oral antibiotics, and in more advanced cases, surgical drainage. If left untreated or if the infection spreads to deeper tissues or the bone, a condition known as osteomyelitis can develop, which is significantly harder to treat. People who bite their nails or frequently pick at the skin around them are at a considerably higher risk of developing paronychia than those who do not.
If Gabby Swierzewski’s experience made you take a closer look at your own nail-biting habit, share your thoughts in the comments.
