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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.
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.
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.
Skin picking often occurs as a result of some other triggering cause. Some common triggers are feeling or examining irregularities on the skin, and feeling anxiety or other negative feelings. This anxiety most commonly stems from a type of OCD, which can range in severity and often goes undiagnosed.
The problem doesn't stop at nails, either. Habitual nail-biters often chomp on the skin around their fingers, too, leaving open cuts and abrasions that could easily pick up even more bacteria or ...
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.
They tend to gravitate to folded areas of the skin to burrow, including between the fingers, the elbow and wrist area, the waist, around genitals, and the buttocks, etc.
: 660 Acute paronychia is usually caused by direct or indirect trauma to the cuticle or nail fold, and may be from relatively minor events, such as dishwashing, an injury from a splinter or thorn, nail biting, biting or picking at a hangnail, finger sucking, an ingrown nail, or manicure procedures.: 339 Chronic
Commonly, it manifests in humans as nail biting and hair pulling. In rarer circumstances, it manifests as serious self mutilative behavior such as biting off one's fingers. Autophagia affects both humans and non humans. Human autophagia typically occurs in parts of the body that are sensitive to pain, such as fingers.
Stereotypic movement disorder (SMD) is a motor disorder with onset in childhood involving restrictive and/or repetitive, nonfunctional motor behavior (e.g., hand waving or head banging), that markedly interferes with normal activities or results in bodily injury.