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Please help. My son can't stop picking his fingers.

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michelle1970
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21 Feb 2011, 1:27 pm

I have OCD and I pick too. When it comes to say my finger nails or my toe nails, it like I look at my finger nails and I say "Wow they are getting long" (they really aren't not by a long shot) Then I get this thought in my head and I get compelled to bit them off and I cant stop til they are really short and hurting. But the thing is I won't stop til they are all short.

So, I guess what Im saying is I understand when someone is picking, you just can't help it. Its a thought that gets in your head and until its "right" you are unable to stop.



coralBits
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22 Feb 2011, 7:03 pm

My son went through a phase of several months of picking at his eyebrows. He was already on a tiny dose of Celexa for anxiety (3 mg daily). We increased his dose to 5 mg daily, for other reasons, but I noticed the picking stopped.

Also wanted to say he has ADHD-like issues at school but stimulant meds were a disaster for us -- very counter to treating his anxiety. He had nightmares and insomnia and daytime meltdowns the likes of which we hadn't seen in years.

I suspect going off of Ritalin and possibly also increasing the Celexa slightly could help your son. Good luck!



kdeering75
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22 Feb 2011, 7:16 pm

dilladop wrote:
I hate to rain on everyone's parade here with the "he'll grow out of it" thoughts, but my husband is 43 and he hasn't. He cuts all his nails with clippers till they bleed. If he doesn't have clippers, he picks even worse. He is very hairy and he picks at his skin, any little imperfection, real or imagined, until it bleeds. I tried and tried to get him to stop when we got married 15 months ago, to no avail. Supposedly there has been some success with taking large amounts of inositol, up to 18 grams, but it didn't seem to help him.
And, get this...he's diabetic...and I'm a nurse who has seen many many lopped off appendages due to diabetic infections. Needless to say, it grieves me greatly, but I have had to learn to try and ignore it because I know he would stop if he could. He has made many other positive changes since we married and this one thing is just not one of them.


I have to say I'm with you. He is a nail bitter (to little left) but he picks the skin around the fingers...I'm a nail bitter, my daughter ISN'T and my son (ADHD/Asperger) is totally like his father. We've tried putting nail biting stuff around the fingers but it doesn't bother him and but I'm not sure if it will ever stop as his dad is the same through and through and he had adhd as a child but now it's managed.



skahthic
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23 Feb 2011, 6:43 pm

Someone had said he is likely to outgrow this--- I only hope this is true for him. i've been chewing my nails and fingers since probably kindergarten, and I'm in my 30's now and still do. When I was a kid it was worse--- twice i peeled off entire nails. But even now I'll chew my nails until they bleed or pick the cuticles until they bleed.
As a kid my mom tried bitter nail polishes and so on, but none of them worked.
I know that I do it more when I am nervous, but also when I feel jagged edges on my nails I am compelled to chew off the part that catches on things. So I've come around to clipping my nails with clippers as short as I can and cleanly so there are no jagged edges. I'm also trying ( emphasis on "trying") to keep my cuticles pushed back so they don't disturb me.
Does this work? sometimes. However, I still do it and probably always will. But that's still an improvement. Good luck with your son and his nails...