Dermatophagia

One sufferer's extremely bitten finger.

The fingers of a dermatophagia sufferer. After some time, the repeated biting leaves the skin discolored and bloody.

Dermatophagia (sufferers can be called wolf-biters) is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder wherein a sufferer compulsively bites their own skin. Sufferers typically bite the skin around the nails, leading to bleeding and discoloration over time.

Behavior

Dermatophagia sufferers chew their skin out of compulsion, and can do so on a variety of places on their body. Sufferers typically chew the skin surrounding their fingernails and joints. They could also chew on the inside of their mouth, cheeks, and/or lips, causing blisters in and outside of the mouth. If the behavior is left unchecked for an extended period, calluses may start to develop where most of the biting is done.

Skin chewing can be bolstered by times of apprehension and other unpleasant events. Blisters in particular can cause a feeling of desire to pull or bite off the affected skin (since the skin is dead, thus easily pulled off), which could be detrimental, causing infection. Another disorder, known as dermatillomania, the act of picking at one's skin, can sometimes accompany dermatophagia.

Dermatophagia can be considered a "sister" disorder to Trichophagia, which involves compulsively biting and eating one's hair.

See also

• Body-focused repetitive behavior
• Dermatillomania
• Nail biting
• Trichotillomania
• Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome