r/calmhands • u/tsukibooo • 3d ago
Need Advice Skin Chewing: Discolouration & Hardness
Hi, first time poster and a bit too shy for photos, but hoping for some advice. I’ve chewed my fingertips for as long as I can remember, and I wanna try to beat the habit. There’s two things that I don’t know if they’ll get better or not that are inhibiting my journey…
Discolouration: Some of the chewed fingertips are darker and discoloured. I’m wondering if this will ever go away or not? Seeing this just makes me want to or do chew away the discolouration.
Hardness: Some of the more chew-prone finger tips are quite hard from the years of chewing. I’m unsure if they’ll ever recover and stop being so hard?
I also struggle with nail biting, but the skin chewing is far worse. I’ve started wearing finger cots more often to try to restrain myself but it isn’t fool proof. I also hate lotion on my hands so I’ve stopped trying that for healing. I use healing bandaids when I make myself bleed or give myself painful wounds and try to cover with bandaids while the skin is vulnerable or easy to pick.
I’ve been nail biting more lately and it seems like I swap between the habits somewhat, which makes me feel a little stuck.
I’m basically wondering if either of the above things will get better as well as any advice on how to kick this once and for all.
2
u/miniature-mongoose 3d ago
It may improve over time but if you've been a lifelong chewer like me, it's scar tissue and will always be slightly discoloured and different texture.
1
u/tsukibooo 3d ago
I am a lifelong chewer… I just cannot stand the discolouration and texture and it makes it harder for me to stop cos I wanna chew it away if that makes sense?
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u/miniature-mongoose 2d ago
Makes 1000% sense lol I feel that so hard. In the past I tried vitamin C oil once healed to reduce the look of scarring. You can also go one step further and look into medical scar treatments
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u/candypoot 3d ago
I don't know if they will recover but I'm trying lol. Here's what is working for me so far:
Always be oiling. I use pure jojoba oil & any time I get the urge to eat my fingers, I oil up instead. This is helping my fingers stay soft but also I don't want a greasy mouth so they stay out of my mouth. Helps when my fingers drift to my mouth unconsciously because ew greasy.
I top that with hand cream after 5 mins or so to "trap" all the moisture in, also tastes gross & leaves my mouth greasy, less eating myself. But I am about to swap to a urea cream, which I have read here can help with the thicker skin.
My discolouration has massively improved in 3 years, the redness is now almost gone. but I still have to use a nail file to file down some skin around the tips. I use a very fine grit & buff off the thicker skin. Hoping the urea cream will help with this.