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

[ElleBelleLou]

Hello mumsnet

Sorry to post in AIBU but I need the traffic - how on earth do I stop picking the skin around my nails red raw?!

I don't even know I'm doing it it's that much of a habit, I think it's an anxiety thing but my fingers are looking just awful. I'm trying hard to grow my nails and sort my hands out - my DP is proposing this year or next and I am so embarrassed at the state of my hands and getting worked up about showing off the ring with the state of my hands!

They're not at their worst at the minute, I'm trying to keep on top of hand cream, I've tried fidget rings, I stop myself or try keep my hands busy when I notice I am doing it but does anyone else have some tried or tested ways to stop picking at my bloody fingers!!

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 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.

Day 2 and I've caught myself picking a few times but trying to be super aware of it and stop! I noticed earlier when I was in a meeting, and didn't have an active role - so just sat there. Could still be an anxiety thing, could be boredom - who knows, but I'm so far doing well keeping applying hand cream, repair balm on my cuticles and dry bits to avoid picking, and keeping my hands busy with blutack.

Payday tonight so I'll be ordering myself some fidget rings - the calm collective ones look good!

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

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

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.

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

just coming with an update!! i've been doing my own gel x nails and slathering myself with cuticle oil and pink vaseline hand cream, and i think a combination of all and really trying to not pick is helping!!

my nails / cuticles are messy as they've started growing out a bit and i'm still learning but still

around my fingers is still red but i think after years and years of picking that may take some time to calm down 🤞🏻

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.

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!!

@ElleBelleLou Your hands and nails look really beautiful

@PamandBluebell Thank you! I recently picked up knitting myself so that's interesting maybe that has helped me too!

@beethecrackon24995 I did try plasters but just found them slipping off constantly and I'd be back to picking - couldn't get them to stay on for the life of me!!

@EcstaticMarmalade Aw thank you so much! My nails are a bit rough but it's all practice!

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