nail biteing

[Dawn mint]

I have a 17 month old boy who was born with a severe rbpi. C5 and C6 was ruptured and C7,8 And T1 were alvulsed. He has under went two surgeries already and is getting some use and some feeling out of it. He still don,t have feeling in his hand and he started biteing on his fingernails. At first he was only doing it a little bit, now he started actually biteing the skin where the nail use to be. It is bleeding and it looks absolutely disgusting. His fingers are swollen and red. The only time he does this is when we are in the car and he is in his carseat. He doesn,t do this at any other time. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if so what can I do about it? No matter what I put on him it takes it off. Gloves don,t work. He can also take tape off. Please if anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

[Joshua]

Hi Dawn,

My 7-year old has not had a fingernail on her right hand for about 4 years. We use up between 30 and 40 Band-Aids every day covering her fingers and she has learned (and I think she even enjoys) replacing her own Band-Aids when they come off. She has gotten a couple of infections as a result of this and I still have no answers about why she picks at her fingertips.

I don't think it's a reaction to emotional stress or boredom or a stimulus to some deep sensation that she may or may not have, or an act of self-destruction.
We have tried not to discourage her from doing this for fear of making her feel self-conscious or "bad" and she can't explain why she is compelled to do it.

She does understand that she must keep Band-Aids on at school and home and that she must keep her fingers clean so they don't get infected. We are having a neuron-psych eval in March to see if there is a reason for this behavior but I suspect that I won't find one. For now I are just trying to keep her from getting an infection and reminding her to replace her Band-Aids whenever I see them off.

I have only found one medical article that documents this activity and it offers no conclusion as to the cause or to ways to deal with it. I'm just going to watch and wait and hope she grows out of it for now.

I talked to a mother who finally got her daughter to stop when she got old enough to want to start wearing nail polish (I think she was 9 or 10).

We have so many issues to deal with and it's so hard to know which ones are most important and must be addressed immediately and which ones will take care of themselves. It a good idea to explore the reasons why your son does this just to discover if it is a dysfunctional reaction to some bigger problem or not but in and of itself nail biting may be unsightly and may risky in terms of infection but that may be all that it is.

I don't know if this helps and I'd like to hear from others that are dealing with this.

Joshua

[Joshua]

Hi again,

I completely forgot to mention that I have tried Tape ... micropore, paper tape, cloth tape (medical), coban, steri-strips, steri-strips with tincture of benzoin, electrical tape, duct tape, mittins, gloves, liquid bandaids, bad tasting anti-nail biting stuff (both commercial and home made), countless rewards, very few threats, scare tactics and exasperation!

Joshua (again)

[Krista :o)]

I have the same problem with my daughter Suvi.

I know some people here Finland have gotten help from pressure clothing. It is hard to put on, but for us (and some others) it helped.

It was a very tight mitten made out of lycra.

[Roseb441702]

I never knew that it was such a popular topic! I put one line on my home page about how I bite my nails and the next thing I know I'm getting email from others who bite their nails as well.

Rose
My Nailbiting Page

http://members.aol.com/Roseb441702/nailbite.htm

[rachelcasa]

I'm left obpi and have been a nail biter for 31 years now. I just said to myself the other day how I need to stop because I would hate for the Dr. to look at my nasty fingernails!! So, guess what!! I chewed them off again once more. ahhh...I also smoke, so my first habit is trying to break the smoking habit. I'm on day 2 of non smoking today. So, maybe biting the nails will be o.k for a while!! *L*
It's gotta be better for ya than smoking.

[LeeAnne]

We had this problem with Michaela when she was younger. She would chew the nail completely off. It started when she was about 2 and not long after we started ates after her nerve graft surgery.Now she's almost 7 and she tells me that it "itches real bad, under my nail by the bone". Her doctor has stated that this is a strange sensation to her as the nerves are reinervating the area, kind of like when your foot is waking up from being asleep only intensified. Now that she's older I apply pressure with mythumb and forefinger to the affected finger on her hand and it seems to help. When she was in the 2-4 year old stage we tried everything to stop her from ripping the nails out of her fingers. Her therapist had me do this one thing and it was the only thing that worked.

By Clove Oil from a pharmacy or health food store and rub a couple of drops into each fingertip and nailbed 2 times a day. Clove Oil is a natural antiseptic to help fight infection, stop bleeding, and as an oil keep the area soft and moist. The other thing is , it TASTES really BITTER, and as an oil will not wash off easily with repeated hand washings.

Try this. It was a real life saver for us, until Michaela was old enough to communicate the problem to us. Good Luck, LeeAnne

[admin]

I am 31 years old now. I have been biteing my nails for most of my life. My mom tried many tactics. By the age of eight or so she was putting Jalapenoes on my finger tips. That didn't work do to it getting in my eye and also my nose.

She eventually found this item that was made specifically for this and tasted horrible. I stopped for awhile. Until my preteen days I believe. But I began to do it again at age eighteen or so. It chronically got worst.

I began biteing the edges of my nails and the skin around it. Spent hours trying to take of as much as I could from my toes. By the age of twenty one or so....
I began useing a knife to get under the edges of toes and yanking as much as I could from under there. Causeing bleeding. I have it to the point where I dont even really have any pinky toe nails. Which with the way they are formed there was never really much to begin with. But what gets to me the most is about four years ago I began tearing my whole middle toe nail off.

Its to the point where it hurts a bit but not as much as one would think. I guess I have probably damaged some of my nerve endings? I don't know. My brother said that there is an actual medical term for this and its a disorder. I also started tearing some of my skin off from the bottom of my feet. Enought to just get the top layer. I would begin from the cutting point and strip away a strand of about one fourth of an inch....depending. The end of the strip would end up going deeper and get to the painful and bleeding part. It would heal and form a little bit of a scab with the new skin and it would intrigue me more to pic at it.

I just finished picking at my toes and figured I would try and reasearch my condition.

If anyone has info or sites about this condition, please email me.

Thank you
ADRIAN

[pecchi17]

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[tylergsmom]

Clove Oil....I had the same problem with my son, except that he was biting more than the fingernail. He was biting the tips of his fingers, turning them into nasty little nubs. Clove oil has a nasty taste and smell, but it also helps heal the finger while it's on there. I used to put it in Ty in the morning before school and then at night before bed. It did the trick and he's been clean and sober for 2 years now...hahahaha! No more nail or finger biting. You can usually find it at specialty cooking store. Good Luck!

Laura