It is not clear why some people develop dermatophagia. According to the TLC Foundation for Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors, both genetic and social factors may have a role. According to the National Institute of Mental Health , people with OCD may be more likely to have family members that also have OCD.
Sometimes it's a manifestation of stress or anxiety or a habitual reaction to feeling uncomfortable, a coping mechanism of sorts. Usually, as in my case, this happens on the fingers, but some people bite other parts of their body too, like the insides of their cheeks.
There is no therapy known to effectively treat dermatophagia, but there have been attempts at stopping those affected from being able to chew on their skin.
Dermatophagia or “wolf-biting”5 is another obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-related disorder and is defined as the compulsion to bite one's own skin. Since many patients do not eat/ingest their skin but simply bite or gnaw on it, researchers have recommended using the term dermatodaxia instead of dermatophagia.
Dermatophagia describes the condition of an individual with a compulsion or habit, either conscious or subconscious, that results in that person biting their own skin. The researchers considered this condition analogous to other self-mutilating disorders such as hair pulling or nail biting [5].
A person with dermatophagia compulsively bites, gnaws, or eats their skin. This might leave their skin raw. This damage to the skin can also increase the risk of developing a skin infection.
Many ADHDers experience understimulation because dopamine receptors in ADHD brains often struggle to pick up dopamine signals. This leads to issues with impulse control, leading some people to rely on body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), including skin-picking, as common ways to lead to greater stimulation.
Other BFRBs include excoriation disorder (skin picking, formerly known as dermatillomania), onychophagia (nail biting), dermatophagia (compulsive skin biting), rhinotillexomania (compulsive nose picking), and trichophagia (compulsive urge to eat one's own hair).
Excoriation disorder (also referred to as chronic skin-picking or dermatillomania) is a mental illness related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is characterized by repeated picking at one's own skin which results in areas of swollen or broken skin and causes significant disruption in one's life.
Recommended. Symptom: You feel stressed when objects are out of place. It's really hard for you to leave home until you've arranged things in a certain way. Symptom: When you're thinking of something completely different, you have thoughts about hurting yourself or someone else.
ADHD can cause excessive nail-biting, hair-pulling, and skin-picking.
Hyperfocusing on picking their skin, pulling/eating their hair, or chewing their nails/cheeks can send kids with ADHD into a “trance” to escape from feeling overwhelmed by a day of executive demands.
Excoriation (skin-picking) disorder is treated with a variety of psychotropic medications. Attempts to treat it with a variety of psychotropic medication classes include antipsychotic agents, antianxiety agents, antidepressant agents, topical cortisone agents, and antiepileptic agents.
People pick their skin for different reasons. For example, they may also have a mental health condition, such as OCD or ADHD. Repetitive behaviors such as skin picking are also common symptoms of ASD.
Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder present with a heterogeneous mix of features beyond the core symptoms of the disorder. These features can be emotional, cognitive or behavioral. Behavioral symptoms often include self-injury, and this may take the form of repetitive skin-picking.
This is what's known as ADHD masking. It happens when a person tries to hide their ADHD symptoms to blend in with the crowd and protect themselves from judgment. This is done by mimicking the behaviors of those around them. In some instances, it can be a helpful strategy.
Dermatodaxia is categorized as an obsessive-compulsive and related disorder. It describes people who habitually bite their skin but do not consume the skin they have bitten. Dermatodaxia can be an isolated body-focused repetitive behavior or occur with other self-induced dermatoses [7-11].
A bite from another person may be mild to severe but the risk of infection is high as the human mouth contains many organisms. It could potentially transmit diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. A bite can also cause tendon, joint and nerve injuries.
Biting Nails
This habit indicates nerves or insecurity. Whether this means they are nervous about talking to you or just in general, this can be a telling body language cue. It can show that you might be making them nervous (which can be a good or bad thing).
Or it could start with picking at the skin around the nails as a way to relieve stress. For some people it's a nervous habit. Others are trying to remove a perceived skin flaw. It can come and go over time.