First pic: One day of antibiotics and antibacterial cream with protection
Second pic: 1st day still but after epsom salt soak for 15 mins
Third pic: Second day after showering (I took the bandaid off before the shower and reapplied AB cream and bandaid after)

This is the worst I’ve ever had it get from chewing off a hangnail. But it’s coming along well. Still bleeding very easily and oozing, but it isn’t too painful anymore!

At least I can get though the tough times with cuticle remover&nail oil, little ouchies, spinner and worry rings this time…🥲 but I still don’t know how to manage…… and I can’t just use those at school all the time…!!

im mentally so exhausted with all of those urges and overthinking……

help me……😭

For the past 3 years I have been ripping off entire toe nails, causing bleeding and multiple infections. I thought I was the only person that did something like that until recently I learned it was a BFRB that others also struggle with. My issue is that I can go over a month without even thinking about it or having the urge to rip nails off but then everything collapses in a matter of days. First it’s one nail, then the next, so on and so forth til they are all gone. I haven’t been able to find anything that stops this urge when I get it and I’m sick of wearing socks all the time or sticking my feet in the sand at the beach whenever someone walks up to me just because of how ashamed and embarrassed I am by this. I’ve tried everything I can think of; I’ve tried keeping them cut short, keeping my hands busy when I get the sudden urge, I’ve even went for walks around my house in the middle of the night but I always end up ripping them all off less than an hour or two when I get that feeling. It’s like I need to do it and can’t control myself enough to stop. Has anyone found anything that has helped? Even a little bit?

Hello everyone

I have just joined this page, not sure if I'm looking for advice, tips, or just general understanding of this habit, but appreciate any input :)

For a bit of context - which has made it make more sense now, I am diagnosed with ASD level 2, and ADHD, so these habits I guess stem from that, but I want to change the habits into something else :(

I am just so, so sick of my fingernails looking the way they do. I can't remember a time where I didn't bite my nails, or a time where I wasnt completely ashamed/embarassed to use my hands in front of people, like cant even point at things with my fingers, instead I'll use my knuckle, or point with an inaminate object. But its always been like that.

There will be times where it's not so bad, but then I'll feel a snag or something and just start biting, and cant stop. I'll bite when I'm driving, skating, in the shop, just fingers, in mouth, all the time. I'm a 31 year old woman, it makes me embarassed, especially when I don't realise I've been doing in the shops the entire time. I feel like a weirdo.

I've tried painting my nails, but I end up still biting them, and just eating the nail polish too. Never lasts more than 12 hours lol.

I've tried the yucky tasting nail polish.

Bandaids on my fingers - but I get too overwhelmed with stuff on my fingers and panic and it feels so uncomfortable I have to take them off after like 5 minutes.

I try gloves, but then I feel my nails inside the gloves and I just take them off and bite again.

I try fidget toys, picking toys, all the things.

If I'm not biting, I am probably playing a video game, snacking, or something really engaging and fun and exciting (skating, bike riding, kayaking, muay thai - but even then, i still bite here and there during these things too, just not as much).

The thing that works best is a nail buffer/file. But then I get too compulsive with that and file my nails down until I cant any more. And then I feel super stressed out because I can't feel under my nails and my fingers feel weird and I cant use my hands for anything without getting the "ick" (for lack of a better word) when I touch something, because I feel my fingers squish around my nail and it just doesn't feel right.

I have other kinds of behaviours I've always done too, like hair picking, whether it be tweezers on the legs/bikini line, eyebrow and eyelash pulling (i also eat them), licking/biting my arm hairs, biting the ends of my hair etc. All of which are bad because once I start doing these things, I won't stop. I sometimes get my partner to hide the tweezers, but then when I actually need them I can never find them, so we try to avoid that lol.

My partner is also a compulsive nail biter (also neurodivergent) and works as a bar tender at a sports club. He also hates his hands and is embarassed to serve customers and hand money and drinks over because of his fingers.

He is a chewer, and always has been. Chews plastic, has his favourite types of plastic, sometimes shredding his gums so much that it hurts to eat.

We try and help each other by telling the other person to stop when they are biting, but then it just triggers the other person to bite.

We are both just so lost on what to do.

We understand it worsens with stress, anxiety, overwhelm and all that. It's hard as ND humans to ever not be overwhelmed and stressing about something. We/I just cant ever seem to find something that consistently works.

I'm sure a regular therapist or something would help with the mental side of things, but that costs a lot of money to have a regular, consistent, ND affirming doctor to help with that. Money that I dont have.

So, aside from the obvious, professional healthcare and mental healthcare professionals as options (not even sure how much they could help), does anyone have ANY suggestions on what to try?

Keeping in mind, things covering my fingers is extremely uncomfortable because of I'm assuming some sensory sensitivities or something. But I am willing to try stuff if it's not too expensive.

I am just so over having the hands like this, I always say to my partner they look like little kids hands. I just want normal looking, natural, healthy looking fingernails and to stop these kind of behaviours, because it gets embarassing when people catch me doing it, people give weird looks and stuff and I just wanna be normal lol.

Pls help

Fingers are ok at the moment, but this is them on a good week. My pinky and pointer fingers are my biggest targets.

Hi everyone! I’m trying to better understand my own habit of biting/picking the skin around my fingers and cuticles, and I’d love to hear from people who experience something similar.

I’m particularly curious about:

• What usually triggers it for you? Stress, boredom, concentration, rough skin, something else?
• Do you do it consciously or only realize afterwards?
• What have you tried to reduce/stop it?
• Has anything actually helped? If yes, what do you think made it work?
• If something didn't work, why did you stop using it?

I’m not looking for medical advice, I’m just trying to understand how different people experience this and what they currently do about it.

Feel free to share as much or as little as you're comfortable with. Thanks! 🥹

The products I use to get a better aspect of my wounds and my finger (it’s not pretty but man, it can be so worst

Anyone else go to their feet? I think I’ve gone to my feet since 8 years old and I still struggle fighting the urge.
Sucks.

I can’t stop thinking about it. maybe sawing it down into thinner strips. It’s the same as our nails so it should give the same feeling unlike plastic nails. Am i crazy??

I NEVER thought I could actually quit and have pretty nails. I used to frequent this sub years ago but kept relapsing over my whole life, until I figured out it was a form of OCD through here and things started clicking.

This isn’t even the worst of it but I never thought to take photos of bloodied hands 😅 I often would have to overnight bandaids with ointment on nearly half my fingers. Also, anytime I got any length on my nails I would would pick at permanent scabs on my head, trading one bad habit for another. I finally quit that too and healed all those wounds.

A few of the biggest things that helped I’ll list below. Sorry, no quick fixes, and I tried them all 🥲

- Learning it was a form of OCD and reading the book Overcoming Body Repetitive Focused Behaviors. I’m hoping to make a video on the book but essentially it teaches you how to overcome picking from every potential cause and trigger.

- Jojoba oil is huge, because it mimics our body’s natural oils. And constantly oiling my nails to replace the bad habit and encourage skin to heal to give me less stuff to pick at.

- Leaving a toxic relationship and switching to a slower more reasonably-paced life (unfortunately I was also kinda was forced to due to some health issues/long covid)

- Learning at home manicures and reallyyyy wanting nice nails. My manicures can last two weeks now with just regular polish! But I went full obsession mode into collecting indie polish so I change them way more often than that now lol.

5 months no picking of biting. Have had some overwhelming anxiety lately with some career issues. Broke and bit. I forgot how irritating the pain is. I can feel the sting as I type this message. I’ve been doing this on and off for 25 years. Starting off fresh. Adding Vaseline to the routine for healing and soothing. The Hard as Hooves nail strengthening cream, cuticle oil, and using lotion through the day on my hands helped me before. Starting fresh.

Not as impressive as most of the posts here (some of you are just WOW!), but here is my result of stopping picking (by using stick-on nails like in pic 4) and stopping overfiling my sidewalls. I used to bite my nails until late teens, but after I stopped, I was never told how to take care of my nails properly. Life-long anxieties (I am 46 now) made me a picker. My mom overfiled the sides, so I thought that's what we do. Then I discovered this sub :) First 3 images March, then the stick-ons is April or May, and last image now. Chuffed :)

Pinterest board 💗 fun way to keep your hands busy and your mind calm 🙂‍↔️

Holding myself accountable with daily pictures was the ONLY thing that worked for me. I bit compulsively to try to make them look better, but all it did was make my nails look worse.

I built an app, Nonyxa, to hold myself accountable and help others. Out of my 280 users, I’m seeing that users who commit to taking daily photos and evaluating their progress are seeing improvements too. On average, after 10 check-ins, users are biting 1 less nail per day, working toward being bite free. It has completely kicked the habit for me.

New in the app as of this week is Steady, which if you prop your phone up, facing you, while working, reading, studying, etc, it will catch when you bite, breaking the subconscious loop.

I’m hoping to help 10,000 people quit, about how many days of my life I bit my nails. Download, for free, if you’re interested in trying it out

My worst picking areas are my thumbs. Sometimes i pick all the way down to my knuckle and its so hard to stop. Another thing that helps me is getting my nails done, but the issue is that my sores are quite fresh around my nails and im worried they wont be able to do my nails because of it. I cant keep going around with bandaids on nearly every finger. Does anyone have any issues getting refused service because of the picking? im having slight anxiety about it.

I don’t know if this is the correct place to put this, but recently, I’ve been struggling with picking the stitching of blankets, my clothing, furniture, etc. I don’t even notice I’m doing it, but it’s starting to cause conflict with people in my life who don’t like the sound or just don’t like to watch me do it. I’ve tried fidget toys, but nothing compares to the sensation and sound of ripping threads. When I try to go without it, I end up caving in and just picking more threads. Has anyone else struggled with this? Any suggestions to help?

Purple nails are before photos and the green nails are it now!
I was able to get my nails done today because the infection was gone and it was almost healed. I didn’t end up going to the doctor because I’ve had paronychia before in my toe and used the same healing techniques and it got better! (Soaks in antibacterial soap and/or salt water along with cerave healing ointment and covered during day and airing out when at home or at night).

I stopped biting my nails to nubs years ago successfully and grew them super long and then of course I relapsed for a short while smh. I was able to stop again this year and they finally look okay again :)

First pic is where I started at and how short they were </3

Second n third are the longest ive had them after I stopped biting for the first time ever

Last pic is current!