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Check out http://www.dermatophagia.org. I’ve set this website up dedicated to this condition that we all suffer from. Expect to see more information on there soon, and please check out the forum for more discussion on this. See you on there!

Well I’m now 22 and a medical student, but also a life long finger eater. It’s a habit I’ve had since I was about 5, my dad used to bite his nails, but for some reason I moved on to biting the skin around my nails and around some of the joints of my fingers and thumbs. I’ve tried to quit numerous times, but it always fails – recently I managed to stop for a couple of weeks which was a record for me, but I’m now back on it. This is a terrible habit, and my fingers don’t look pretty, in particular one that I have disfigured pretty badly – it’s an embarassment and I always have to hide my hands from people.

Another thing, I know when I was a kid my parents always used to tell me off when I did it. Providing you actually want to quit, this can be counter-productive, it might be worth telling your parents this.

If you’re a finger eater, I want to hear from you – please send me an email. I am currently trying to put together a website for people with this condition so we can get it fully recognised and get some proper treatment and advice. There are many young people out there with this, and if you carry on to the age that I have then it could be potentially permanently disfiguring for your fingers, so the earlier you can zap the habit the better. I look forward to hearing from you – my email address is fw101@ic.ac.uk