I stopped for a while when my coworker almost got sepsis from a infected point around her nail where she had picked her skin. She said she got antibiotic shots in her fingers at the ER to avoid amputating her finger. Anyway that scared me for a while but also didn’t entirely stop the picking and now if I do bleed I wash it immediately and put neosporin and band aid. Sadly my son is a finger picker, and so is my mother. I definitely learned it from her and he definitely learned it from me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BFF used to make her feet bleed doing this. She was later diagnosed as severely OCD. I think that might be a place to start?

That’s where I am right now. Do you know what she did for treatment?

Therapy and she was medically written out of her career (teaching). She found a new career and is now thriving.

I stopped when I was put on OCD meds in my early 20s. I’m 50+ and most of the skin picking has stopped.

Knitting, crochet, painting, woodworking, drawing, cross stitch, anything that uses your hands.

If it is just one spot on each - go to your dermatologist; they'll burn or freeze the spots (its not as bad as it sounds, I swear), and then you keep ointment on them for a week or two and the spots will be all healed up and unpickable. Mine did this for me for several spots on my scalp that I couldnt stop picking for over 10 years. Never knew that was the solution!

This place has a whole program for skin picking type behaviors:

http://www.behaviortherapycenter.com/

Anonymous wrote:My BFF used to make her feet bleed doing this. She was later diagnosed as severely OCD. I think that might be a place to start?

That’s where I am right now. Do you know what she did for treatment?

My BFF used to make her feet bleed doing this. She was later diagnosed as severely OCD. I think that might be a place to start?

Buy some small fidget toys, seriously! I’m a skin picker too, most often when sitting still, watching tv, reading, etc. so I ordered some small fidgets and use them at those times to keep my hands busy. It doesn,t work for every situation obviously, but it can help along with some of these other suggestions.

What part of your fingers do you pick? I used to pick the skin around my nails until they bled and had forever open sores. I decided to put bandaids around each finger to cover the parts I picked at (with Neosporin) to get them to heal. And I continued with the bandaids for months just to keep myself from picking. It broke the habit completely.

Well.. I still pick at my scalp, but it's not as bad or frequent. But bandaids are worth a try if it's feasible.

I’ve struggled with this my entire life!

Only things that helped: lots of moisturizer (dry skin = easy to pick)and getting manicures. Something about spending money on my hands/having painted fingernails cuts down on my impulses.

It’s still a battle though. It gets worse when I’m stressed and then there are times when I feel like I act almost normal. Good luck to you. I know how hard it is.

Lots of lotion / moisturizer for the cuticles does it for me. Also I find that nail salons cut off too much of the cuticles, causing the skin to pull back and very hard to resist picking those off.

One good strategy is to get acrylic nails. You can’t really pick with them because they’re so thick, and this allows the areas to clear up. SNS and gel nails are thinner and you can still pick with them. Obviously, it doesn’t treat the root problem. I’ve known people also to take a mild anti-anxiety medication. I don’t think the therapy or fidget tools are super effective.

Good info on these websites:

https://pickingme.org/

https://www.bfrb.org/

I’ve been a horrible skin picker (fingers and feet) since I was a child. It’s gone up and down in severity over the course of my life and I’m in a pretty bad stretch right now. Anyone had success in quitting? What worked?