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Dermatophagia (from Ancient Greek δέρμα — lit. skin and φαγεία lit. eating) or dermatodaxia (from δήξις, lit. biting) is a compulsion disorder of gnawing or biting one's own skin, most commonly at the fingers.
Body-focused repetitive behavior. Dermatillomania (picking of the skin) of the knuckles (via mouth), illustrating disfiguration of the distal and proximal joints of the middle and little fingers.
Compulsive picking of the knuckles (via mouth) illustrating potentially temporary disfiguration of the distal and proximal joints of the middle and little fingers. The fingers have been compulsively picked and chewed in someone with excoriation disorder and dermatophagia .
Often, the adjacent skin is bitten off, too, which is called perionychophagia, a special case of dermatophagia. Biting nails can lead to broken skin on the cuticle. When cuticles are improperly removed, they are susceptible to microbial and viral infections such as paronychia. Saliva may then redden and infect the skin.
It matches the description in the cited article "Dermatophagia simulating callosities", which describes a 15-year-old boy with calluses on his knuckles because he chewed his fingers frequently.
People with severe involvement often show lumps on the back of their finger joints (called "Garrod's pads", "knuckle pads", or "dorsal Dupuytren nodules"), and lumps in the arch of the feet (plantar fibromatosis or Ledderhose disease).
Midphalangeal hair, or the presence/absence of hair on the middle phalanx of the ring finger, is one of the most widely studied markers in classical genetics of human populations. Although this polymorphism was observed at other fingers as well, for this kind of research, the fourth finger of the hand has been conventionally selected.
The metacarpophalangeal joints (MCP) are situated between the metacarpal bones and the proximal phalanges of the fingers. These joints are of the condyloid kind, formed by the reception of the rounded heads of the metacarpal bones into shallow cavities on the proximal ends of the proximal phalanges. [1]
The interphalangeal joints of the hand are the hinge joints between the phalanges of the fingers that provide flexion towards the palm of the hand. There are two sets in each finger (except in the thumb, which has only one joint):
A rheumatoid nodule is a lump of tissue, or an area of swelling, that appears on the exterior of the skin usually around the olecranon (tip of the elbow) or the interphalangeal joints (finger knuckles), but can appear in other areas.