to ask how on earth you stop picking the skin around your nails?!

i found the fabric plasters stayed on, so well infact that it was hard to remove them😁

@ElleBelleLou Your hands and nails look really beautiful

Plasters OP plasters!!!!! When I was getting married the only way I could not do it was to wrap a plaster around each finger nail 😀 worked a treat although got weird looks from the people sat opposite me on the tube. I started picking again on my honeymoon but didn't care as I enjoy it!!

Well done! I was 50 this year and have picked the skin round my thumbs for probably 45 years. Unconsciously and consciously and the more I picked the more I needed to pick - to even things up, or just that little bit and then would peel loads off. I was so ashamed. So I decided to stop for my 50th, it’s not easy. I have found cuticle oil twice a day, so much handcream, gloves and knitting in the evenings. I need to keep my hands busy and now my thumbs are so much better - the urge is still there but weirdly not as strong. Good luck to anyone trying to overcome this.

Acrylic nails- you won’t be able to pick then.

In my teens I stopped biting my nails and picking skin by doing my own nails every night. I would sometimes take off and reapply the polish 3 or 4 times til I thought it was perfect.

Partly I think it was displacement, instead of biting/picking I was painting, partly the remover stung the rare bits a lot and partly I didn’t want to spoil the nails/hands I’d worked so hard on.

I did this for a couple of months and gradually calmed down to doing them once an evening and then every few days. Once I was there it became applying hand cream several times an evening and eventually that just became once or twice too.

Also op I Don’t have anxiety at all and not often bored but do still pick:

I just ordered two calm collective rings - can’t wait. So amazing that someone was in my head and invented the thing I needed !

I also am a picker but I have a bit more info on what possibly helps and why through the children I work with. It's usually to do qith the sensory feedback your in need of. Fidget toys can be great but you need to match your sensory needs. Picking gives the same sensory feedback at resistance - things like pushing heavy objects, weighted blankets and lap pads, doing some wall push ups or tricep dips, lifting weights, having a resistance band across the legs of a chair under your feet. There's only one fidget toy I've found that works and it's a marble in a mesh tube that you push through it.

I'm here too. My thumbnails are completely wonky thanks to years of destroying the sides of them. Like so many of you say, it's totally unconscious.

I keep my nails beautifully manicured & painted which helps, and if I start going at them I'll wear a plaster as a reminder/barrier.

This is the best product I've found so far

O'Keeffe's, Working Hands, Hand Cream, 3.4 oz (96 g) (iherb.com)

I started nibbling the skin round my nails as a way to stop biting them.
I was a nail biter from a young age, most likely due to anxiety. My mother decided that the best way to stop me was to pretend to bite her own nails. Funnily enough, it didn't work.
I didn't like how other nail biters fingers ended up. Hence the switch.
I still bite my nails, but only instead of using nail clippers etc. Then use an emery board to get rid of jagged edges.
I'm in my 50's and have come to the conclusion that nothing us going to help.

I think the only way to stop me picking the skin around my fingers would be to chop my fingers off.

I just can't bear loose bits of skin flapping about catching on things, so they have to come off.

Omg I do this too!! I pick my thumbs into oblivion leaving the big horizontal lines 😭😭😭 I push down on the pretty much open skin at the bottom of the nail bed and it’s so satisfying. I’ve never known anyone else to do this I’ve did it since I was a kid and now I’m 36.

I did this, for years plus nail biting to the point I'd peeled some of my nails back. Honestly if you saw the before and after pictures of my nails you'd be shocked.
What I did:
Self referred for CBT and after a long wait for it this helped.
Read skin picking blogs and books.
Had gel nails once I'd got to that point and still do as the thick edges stop me picking.
Put Vaseline on if I ever felt triggered to pick, I hate the greasy feeling tho.
Put cuticle oil or thick cream (like Vaseline dry hands rescue) each night and rub in to replace the picking.
I bought craft tools like clay etc to keep my hand busy.
It's a work in progress and takes some persistence to deal with skin picking, I'd bitten my nails since a young child and the neural pathways to self soothe in my brain with skin and nail licking were well entrenched when I decided at 35 that enough was enough.

I was literally doing it as I read your thread title! I do it til they bleed as well and my DD also does it. I don’t really know I’m doing it but it’s a comfort for some reason. My DH hates it and tells me off regularly.

I don’t suppose I will stop now, I’m 52! I will try those rings in hope.

When you say pick does it involve biting too?

My 4 year old DD does this. It started with nail biting and now that she has no nails left to bite she bites and picks at the skin. They are so sore, it's so distressing to see her poor little fingers.

I've applied some of that solution that tastes horrible to prevent biting, hoping that will help. Maybe it could help you too if biting is part of the issue?

I wish I had an answer. Mine definitely gets worse when I'm anxious generally, and is mostly likely to be bad in the week before my period, when I feel most anxious generally.

My mum and aunt both do it really badly so I wonder if I either inherited it or learned it via osmosis!

Things that have helped if not cured:

I use cuticle trimmers to remove any tempting rough edges
I carry a luxurious hand cream I love applying (Aesop) and find that applying it both limits tempting rough bits and often acts as a good substitute for the picking
I find other things to fiddle with. Bits of paper etc. I'm tempted to get some worry beads! Clue in the name and all that
Cuticle oil at night
Always make sure my nails are done beautifully so I feel more inclined not to "ruin" my fingers

I used to do this and bite my nails too. So much so, that the skin on my thumbs was a completely different colour. I started having builder gel done and it made my nails sort of blunt and ineffective at picking which has meant they've healed finally!

I started biting my nails aged 4 - the day I started school, according to my mum. I stopped biting them in my mid 50s by telling myself loudly that I 'don't do this any more'. But then I replaced that habit with pulling the skin around my nails. My fingers are sore at the moment so I'm going to rub in some Gardeners cream by Crabtree and Evelyn (no link to them). This helps, but I keep forgetting to use it...

And yes gel names stop you doing it!

I bite / pick the skin on my fingers and when I make the effort to stop I find myself then biting the dry skin on my lips.

I don’t like how it looks but I do find it satisfying when I’m doing it so I can’t stop! My Mum does it, so do my siblings & now one of my DC. I try to discourage them but obviously am not a good role model.

Used to have a lot of problems with ragged cuticles - eventually realised it was the way the manicurist hacked at my nails with clippers.
Getting a better manicurist helped - then found these, and now only get my nails filed & polished, no cuticle work.
Brushworks Cuticle Crystal Sticks - 8 Pack : Amazon.co.uk: Home & Kitchen

£3 for a pack that probably last a year - they let you gently file any skin/cuticle that's causing a problem, I tend to use them after a bath when the skin is soft, and I'm rubbish at using cuticle oil, but any oil will help - often use that in the bath as well.