Dermatillomania

Dermatillomania – also known as Compulsive Skin Picking (CSP) – is an anxiety disorder suffered by people who obsessively and compulsively pick their skin – including their nails and cuticles – to the point that physical harm is done.

Some clues that you might suffer from Dermatillomania are:

• Picking your fingers relieves stress
• Picking your fingers causes some pain, but the pain isn’t distressing and is actually gratifying (Self Injury)
• You can’t control the impulse to pick your fingers
• You have negative thoughts about your body in general, your fingers in particular — and you somehow feel that picking them will make them less “imperfect” (Body Dysmorphic Disorder or BSD)
• Picking your fingers is a problem — you do it compulsively — but seems like the least of your worries right now (i.e. you may be suffering from full-blown clinical depression)

If these symptoms sound familiar, it may be helpful to look into other disorders, since many of these psychological disorders go hand-in-hand.

A relatively new treatment for Compulsive or Chronic Skin Picking may be the drug Lamotrigine. Recent studies have shown that it has unique effects on this disorder.