My splits are splitting

I don't know what to do, I am noticing growth but my ends are jacked up. I have trimmed about four or five times this year, trynna get rid of splits. But upon close inspection my splits have splits, sometimes three times and then a single strand knot. Don't ask me how that happens to a lady who only detangles with conditioner and leaves her hair stretched 95% of the time. Some one who almost never uses heat. I have used it twice last yr. Once in March and once in December.
I have thought about searching and destroying but I thought that was ridiculously tedious. Then for a week straight, I wanted this over priced machine that probably would have ripped my hair out. The infomercial claimed that it only trimmed the splits. I went searching high and low for Black, then curly, then natural women using this. I found some staight haired Black women on youtube, but textured hair seemed to evade this thing like the plague. Then I went to my trusty hair forums..... they confirmed what my heart did not want to believe. That weird, overpriced machine would have gotten all tangled in my naps to say the least. My choices are to cut much higher on the strand about all the knots and splits(loosing a few hard earned inches) or search and destroy gradually. I chose the later. I will see how this works out after a few months.