Getting To Know Dermatophagia, The Habit Of Bitting The Skin To Get Rid Of Anxiety

Illustration (Karolina Grabowska/Pexels)

JAKARTA - Many people have the habit of biting nails or sometimes chewing nails. However, if your habit of continuously biting and eating the skin on your hands and fingers, you may suffer from dermatophagia.

Dermatophagia is an obsessive-compulsive disorder that refers to someone who likes to bite his skin. Many people with this condition often have other related conditions that may include repetitive behavior that focuses on the body.

Dermathophagia can cause thickening of the skin around your hands and nails. If you experience this condition, you may need to see a dermatologist, because biting can cause infection and disease in nails that can cause problems.

If you're curious about whether you have dermatophagia, there are some signs to watch out for. Common dermatofagia signs include:

In addition, you may be vulnerable to skin infections due to repeatedly biting around the area.

It's unclear what causes dermatophagia. A study in 2022 shows that the behavior of biting or chewing the skin can be caused by anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or depression.

The study also showed that dermatophagia may be related to conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, intellectual defects, and autism spectrum disorders. Although the fundamental cause of dermatophagia is not yet known, it is clear that this is a recurrent behavior that focuses on the body.

If you are seeking treatment for dermatophagia, various therapeutic options may help. Habit reversal training is one of the most popular treatment options. Habit reversal training involves four different parts that help individuals reverse a habit.

Four parts of habit reversal training include:

Research from 2021 shows that habit reversal training is very effective for body-focused repetitive behavior.

Decoupling is another treatment method used for dermatophagia and other body-focused repetitive behaviors. Decoupling techniques involve the diversion of repetitive behavior and create irritation so that you can identify iterative behavior and intervene before doing so.

Other treatment methods may involve collaborating with mental health experts using cognitive behavior techniques to help identify the mind, behavior, and feelings associated with the body's repetitive behavior.

This condition is not understood properly, so the diagnosis may be difficult for doctors. If you are looking for a diagnosis for chewing or biting your skin, you will most likely be diagnosed along with an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It is very likely that an obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis will occur first, and then a dermatophagia diagnosis. You can meet a dermatologist to help diagnose, because they can help diagnose and treat these conditions effectively.