Subungual Hematoma After Dog Bite: Healing & Nail Loss Concerns

Question
After a medium hard dog bite just a quarter inch above my thumbnail cuticle five days ago, healing has been satisfactory and showing no signs of infection. (First aid was done really well.)  Whether I'll lose the nail is the big question, and your posted comment would suggest I just might keep it. Except for the normal-looking outermost corner, the nail appears UNIFORMLY purple, but not "black" the way an area needing drainage (via making a hole in the nail) would appear.  Each day the swelling has diminished, & I need less ibuprofen. Until perhaps yesterday, the nail did feel like a foreign object enough that I thought I'd be losing it, but now the nail feels way less dead (less like it's got candle wax melted onto it), the color isn't trending darker (as it did the first 24 hours) but is relatively light blue. It has no locus of any darker blue.  The only remaining swelling is the skin within half an inch of the cuticle.  I don't believe that making a hole in the nail would yield any escape of blood or puss.
  Is there any reliable predictor of whether I'll be losing the nail?  Anything I can do (like habitually pressing /massaging to increase circulation, adding or eliminating anything diet-wise) to improve its chance of staying with me?

Answer
you can't tell if the nail will come off absolutely... unless there is a lot of blood under the nail... it would have helped to drain the nail early, rather than late. It may not drain at this point however, as the blood may have clotted... if the nail does come off, as long as the nail base wasn't damaged, it should come back normally, but will take 6 months or more.