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Those with dermatophagia typically chew the skin surrounding their fingernails and joints. They also chew on the bottom of their feet/toes, inside of their mouth, cheeks, and/or lips, causing blisters in and outside of the mouth.
The fingers have been compulsively picked and chewed in someone with excoriation disorder and dermatophagia. Compulsive picking of the face using nail pliers and tweezers. Episodes of skin picking are often preceded or accompanied by tension, anxiety, or stress. In some cases, following picking, the affected person may feel depressed.
Chewing fingers (in extreme cases, leading to amputation) Possible causes. This section will focus on the causes for autophagia in humans. There is no single primary cause for autophagia. Due to limited medical research which differentiates autophagia from typical nail biting practices, the causes of autophagia remain broad.
Onychotillomania is a compulsive behavior in which a person picks constantly at the nails or tries to tear them off. It is not the same as onychophagia, where the nails are bitten or chewed, or dermatillomania, where skin is bitten or scratched.
Fingernail-biting that develops into fingernail-eating is a form of pica. Other forms of pica include dermatophagia, and compulsion of eating one's own hair, which can form a hairball in the stomach. Left untreated, this can cause death due to excessive hair buildup. Self-cannibalism can be a form of self-harm and a symptom of a mental disorder.
Nail biting, also known as onychophagy or onychophagia, is an oral compulsive habit of biting one's fingernails. It is sometimes described as a parafunctional activity , the common use of the mouth for an activity other than speaking, eating, or drinking.
In more severe cases, the motions may become harmful to the individual, and may involve things such as ripping, tearing, or chewing at the skin around one's fingernails, lips, or other body parts to the point of bleeding. Psychomotor agitation is typically found in various mental disorders, especially in psychotic and mood disorders.
This research may offer relief for people with repetitive body-focused behaviors — such as skin picking and hair pulling — that can affect their mental health.
Biting the fingers and lips is a definitive feature of Lesch–Nyhan syndrome; in other syndromes associated with self-injury, the behaviors usually consist of head banging and nonspecific self-mutilation, but not biting of the cheeks, lips and fingers.
Causes. Acute paronychia is usually caused by bacteria. It is often treated with antibiotics, either topical (applied to the skin) or oral (taken by mouth), or both. Chronic paronychia is most often caused by a yeast infection of the soft tissues around the nail but can also be traced to a bacterial infection.