Dermatophagia

**Shift** · Joined: 24 Jun 2006 Posts: 562

If you don't know what it is: http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/d/dermatophagia/intro.htm

I've been dealing with this since middle school. I've attempted to stop but it's not easy. I also know it's not easy to admit you have the problem - it's kind of embarrassing. But, I did a little research tonight and found out that I'm not the only one biting my fingers - that enough people suffer from it for it to have been given an official term. I've read about people who have been battling it for more than a decade. Simply knowing that there are other people out there with the same problem I have is enough for me to attempt stopping again. Basically, I'm posting this in the hopes that it will help anyone else too ashamed to seek help.

Perhaps internet anonymity will give us courage. Anyone else here fighting dermatophagia? How have you been faring?
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**jesse0986** · Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:38 am Post subject:

I usually only bite around my nails when callouses are developing, which, as you can imagine, has happened a lot since I started playing plastic guitar.

I don't tear the skin away to make it bleed intentionally but it does happen from time to time.

And I don't bite at my toes, but my pinky toenail grows "upward" instead of "outward," and when it gets long enough I almost always stop what I'm doing for a few minutes to pick at it with my fingernails. It usually tears away some of the skin around my toe, which does hurt, but I can't convince myself to stop.
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**Rawrspoon** · Joined: 04 Sep 2008 Posts: 1597

I always bite my skin, but not to hurt.

And it's also OCD-like

**killermonkey** · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1163 Location: Brookings Oregon

I've had this since I was 5. I thought nothing of it. I though I just had an oral fixation. oh well.
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**TheThirdDay** · Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 4357 Location: Toms River, NJ

I didn't know this had a name.

I chew the living s**t out of my fingers and my lips/the inside of my mouth, and I've been doing it as long as I can remember. I try not to do it, but I just can't help it; a lot of the time I do it subconsciously. I just bit off some skin from my ring finger as I was reading over what I typed so far and didn't even realize it at first.

The entire inside of my mouth is scared and, at this point, if I don't bite the skin off, my mouth can't hold on to it and it just kinda, I don't want to say decays, but it just dies off. I've been able to reach into the inside of my cheek and pull of a roughly two inch pieces of dead flesh many times in the past.

My lips are always so rough and dry because I bite at them and rip the skin up, commonly to the point of bleeding and scabbing. And then I can't help but bit the scabs off.

And then there are my fingers. First, I'll just bit my nails or something, and then I'll proceed to bite off the skin in the corner of my nails because with the nail gone, the skin is raised up too high and it bothers me. I'll continue to bit it further and further down until I get passed the bottom of the nail, usually at which point I'm bleeding. Around the bottom corners of my nails (the side away from the fingertip), I have weird brown scars on a lot of my fingers from biting off the skin so much.

At many points in my life, I've attempted to stop doing this, but I just never can. A lot of the time, I'll be able to control the urge, but then I'll just end up doing it without even realizing I'm doing it, like when watching tv or something. At this point, I've pretty much given up hope of ever stopping.
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**NavyCherub** · Joined: 28 May 2008 Posts: 3396

I bite the skin on the sides of my fingernails, but I've never felt any pain from it and I've never bled from it. It always seemed like extra stuff to me because it came off so easily. I also bite my fingernails, so I figured all of that had something to do with OCD. It's never really caused me any problems.

I used to bite the inside of my cheeks like TheThirdDay, but I haven't done that for years for whatever reason.
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**Shift** · Joined: 24 Jun 2006 Posts: 562

I'm really surprised at the amount of response this topic's gotten, and it's only an hour old. I guess it's really more commonplace than I thought. Thanks for speaking up.

**kyle99** · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 837 Location: Spokane, WA

Yup, I got this. I just eat my fingers, kinda weird, huh? I also eat the skin on my feet aswell...

**turbo** · Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:24 am Post subject:

I bite the inside of my lip. Just 2 or so weeks ago I chewed away at it so much I pretty much had a full inch soft scab on the inside of my lip.

I'm resisting chewing right now. It DOES feel good to chew on it though. I've got a little lump that I feel I should squish away at. Never anywhere other than my lip though.
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**Ouzo** · Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:14 pm Post subject:

I've had this for a looooong time. I never really thought there was anything wrong with it until I realized a year or so ago just how bad it looks, especially if you've been swimming for a while. I've been trying to reduce my biting since then and have gotten to the point where my biting doesn't cause bleeding and such anymore, but I still do it minimally due to nervousness or stress.
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**migthegreek** · Joined: 06 Feb 2008 Posts: 630

Had no idea this was a proper disorder. Must be pretty common then.

I bite skin/nails almost constantly all day unless my hands are doing something. Sometimes I can't play GH or real guitar very well because of the pain after biting too far.

**TheMouldyCheese** · Joined: 20 May 2009 Posts: 225

One of my mates seems to have this, he constantly bites his nails whenever his fingers are free, as well as sticking them up his nose, i find it kinda disgusting really, mostly the nose part, but yeh.

His hands look really horrible though, the nails are half as big as they should be and his fingers are all frayed and white around the nails, his gf and me keep pulling him up on it, but 20 seconds later he's back at it.
Funny thing is, he does know hes doing it, actually looks at his fingers and sizes them up before biting haha.

Ive never really had a problem with it, i occasionally have a bite at a nail, but only if its getting quite big.

I keep suggesting for him to chew gum instead, or whenever he catches himself doing it, give himself a pinch. Then his brain might subconsciously learn not to do it or he'll get a pinch, a bit like a dog....lol.
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**Blehgopie** · Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 1218

Wow, I've been doing this for ages, and sometimes I do bite it to the point where it hurts like a bitch for a few days... I don't really understand the stress-relief part of it though, I just do it when I'm bored, or completely zoned out. I don't feel any different during or after, unless I bite them to the point its painful.

I also have the habit of biting my toes..mainly because there is usually more skin and it's thicker, see the thing with me is I love having a chunk of skin that I can literally chew on for awhile, but luckily my toe biting habit has gone down a bit, and now I do it very rarely, and generally only stick to toe nails.
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**Boomsars** · Joined: 01 Jun 2007 Posts: 1273 Location: Arkansas

I do this pretty badly as well. If my fingernails get even slightly too long, I'll begin chewing them off and giving myself hangnails (not intentionally, of course). Then I spend the next four or five days dealing with the hangnails and the skin around the fingernails. I'd say I cut (chew) my fingernails off once a week and deal with the skin in between. I currently have four fingers that are scabbed or calloused up and three of my toes.

I never knew this was an actual problem. I just thought it was a bad habit. One of the ways I tried to stop was to start using fingernail clippers and tweezers instead of my mouth, which worked for a while, but eventually I was away from home and started chewing and it call came back. Good luck to anyone trying to stop. You're a stronger man than I.

**LethalFishEater** · Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:26 pm Post subject:

Hi, I'm LethalFishEater and I bite nails and the inside of my mouth. I bite my nails out of habit (maybe when I'm winding down for the day), and I'm always biting the inside of my mouth. I don't see any damage from doing these things, but I'm sure it's there and I just can't see it.
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