i bite my fingers, and yes...i said FINGERS!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

When I say bite my fingers... this is what I mean...

It starts with a cuticle....then it goes all the way around my fingernail, sometimes halfway to my knuckle. It's like I see a hangnail and just using clippers is not enough because it doesn't pull it off completely so I have to bite it and LITERALLY tear it off.

It is a disgusting habit that I have had for 15+ years. I REALLY do not know how to stop. I have tried everything. Stuff that tastes bad, stuff that hurts like the DICKENS.... bandaides, gloves at night, I am at the end of my rope.

I am starting nursing school in the spring and I CANNOT be a finger biter!!! It really does hurt, but I don't care...I do it anyway.

Surely I am not the only one.... :cry:

Any advice? :redpinkhe:redpinkhe

Specializes in Med/Surg.
yeah...that makes me feel like a crazy person... :(

Seeing a mental health professional for a problem you're having trouble controlling has absolutely no relationship to being a crazy person. Many mentally healthy people are in therapy, it's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. If you're having trouble now how do you think it could get any better by adding the stress of nursing school?

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Specializes in Med/Surg.
p.s. IMO that opinion someone posted about you seeing a mental health professional was unneccesary. Thats just my opinion...surely you can try some of the other suggestions posted here.

...and yes that is my opinion, we each have a right to our own opinions. You take what you like and leave the rest...

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Specializes in Med Surg, Ortho.

I use to bite my fingernails for many years. Not anymore. When I tried to quit, I couldn't. When I stopped trying to quit, I was able to quit. Same with smoking cigs. Have you tried chewing gum? Sounds like you just have a nervous habit and chewing gum or doing something with your hands will help. Try eating sunflower seeds. Thinking back, I believe that's when I got out of the habit of biting my nails. I'd eat a ton of seeds though. Lots of sodium too so be careful doing that.

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i also bite and even pick at my fingers. i am very conscious now that i am school of really thinking about what i am doing and trying to stop before i end up with open wounds on my fingers. try to think of distracting things to do. chewing gum or having mints handy is very helpful. if you are like me and have to keep your hands busy put a rubberband in your pocket or something else to fiddle with. i try to remember "idle hands are the devil's tools"!

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Whatever...I don't believe its anything deeper...its just a habit...something that you do subconsciously...does everything have to have some deep scientific reason? UGH!

I bite my nails too...till I bleed sometimes...but what have been working lately is the fact that I think about parasytes :bluecry1:...I hate parasytes...I hate worms period. As a matter of fact...I actually have a phobia for worms..yeah I know its crazy...but I really really hate creepy crawly things...so when I'm about to bite my nail, I imagine these things being on my fingers ahhhhhhhh!!!!! lol

moral of the story...think of some germy thing that you hate and imagine it going inside your body when you bite your nails....it might help..hehe:imbar

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Specializes in Operating Room Nursing.

I'm a nail biter as well when I'm stressed out etc. I make a conscious effort not to do this in public because it is a disgusting habit but at home I can't help it sometimes.

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Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.

I use to be a chronic nail-biter. Two things helped me quit: Keeping nail polish on my fingernails and reminding myself of all of the nasty germs that nails and fingers carry. It is a very tough habit to break. :redbeathe

From Wikipedia:

Dermatophagia (sufferers can be called wolf-biters) is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder wherein a sufferer compulsively bites their own skin. Sufferers typically bite the skin around the nails, leading to bleeding and discoloration over time.

Behavior

Dermatophagia sufferers chew their skin out of compulsion, and can do so on a variety of places on their body. Sufferers typically chew the skin surrounding their fingernails and joints. If the behavior is left unchecked for an extended period, callouses may start to develop where most of the biting is done.

Skin chewing can be bolstered by times of apprehension and other unpleasant events. Blisters in particular can cause a feeling of desire to pull or bite off the affected skin (since the skin is dead, thus easily pulled off), which could be detrimental, causing infection. Another disorder, known as dermatillomania, the act of picking at one's skin, can sometimes accompany dermatophagia.

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Specializes in psych. rehab nursing, float pool.

I can see the point of seeking out a doctor if unable to alleviate the desire/need/compulsion to chew on around her nails down her hands.

Perhaps some people can quit on their own, good for them. For those who can not there are professionals who can help. No stigma attached to needing help outside of yourself.

It is said habits can be changed/broken in 21 days if truly just a bad habit, if not a person may need more.

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There are many OCD behaviors that are not the "classic" hand washing or checking. Sounds like you have one. I had the same one. I keep lotion everyplace for hands. When i see myself starting I pick up some lotion and rub it in. Helps stop the hangnails and that stops the cycle for me.

A visit to MH is a great idea. If it is so serious that the remedies suggested don't stop it then there may be talk therapy of minor doses of something mild for anxiety.

Nurses and nursing students are not made of solid steel, regardless of how much we like to think we can handle it alone. Don't be afraid to get prof. help.

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

Just want to stress what others have said, if you've tried everything and still have not been able to stop, it would be in your best interest to see a mental health professional. You aren't "crazy" and you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. You need treatment for this just like you would need treatment if you were having recurrent gallbladder attacks.

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Specializes in CCU MICU Rapid Response.

Beth- I bite/pick/clip/chew mine. Really depends on the amount of stress, but sometimes even a really good movie that I am watching gets it going and before you know it... bloody puffy stumps. :( Manicures and Tips DO help. The nails arent thin enough to get the picking started, and if you are like me, that is what the problem is... and it couldnt hurt to try. The thought that alcohol gel burns like the dickens when you are raw helps too. What really hits home and makes me try try try not to bite and pick is that my patients can see my hands as I care for them and such. I would die of embarrassment for them to think that there is some strange skin thing I have. ~from a girl who knows... Ivanna

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I bite my cuticles, not down to the knuckles but around my fingernails, which are often very raw and red. It is my shameful not so secret secret.

I spoke to a mental health professional about it and she told me it was an obsessive/compulsive behavior. She prescribed Zoloft, which I guess is a medication often used to treat OCD behavior. ?????

I didn't react well to it though. Made me really jittery...well I guess it helped a little because my hands were shaking so much I couldn't keep them still to pick at them.

I did some reading on OCD and learned that compulsions like cuticle biting or excessive handwashing or whatever, are responses to extremely stressful thoughts that the brain can't handle or process without going into overload, the compulsion kicks in as a kind of automatic, preprogrammed distraction to the thought. Well, that's a very general and simplified way of looking at it.

But I started thinking about what's going on in my head when I do it. I realized that I usually start knawing when some stressor in my life triggers a bunch of really black and scary thoughts from my past -- and there are a lot of those.

It was helpful to me understand where the behavior was coming from. A lot of times I don't even realize that I'm picking at my cuticles, but then when I notice that I'm doing it I stop myself and say OK, what's going on in your head right now? Kind of breaks up the cycle.

Anyway, one thing that helps me is to keep cuticles from drying out. I use a lot of lotion at bedtime -- that Vaseline Intensive care cocoa butter stuff in the copper colored bottle works great. I can't wear it during the day becuase it is really thick and heavy, and turns into a slimey puddle of grease if it's hot outside. And then just use lots of regular lotion during the day.

Hope that helps a little -- it's very helpful to me to know that I'm not the only one out there with this problem.

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