5 year old biting skin on fingers, causing bleeding. HELP!

[Feellikerubbish]

My 5 year old son started biting his nails and the tip of his fingers over a month ago. I treid the over the counter solutions which is painted onto the nail and gives a bitter taste. Didn't work and while at the gp for another issue, i mentioned about the nail biting. The real problem is not biting the nails but he has started to bite the skin of his finger tips and along his fingers. It is so bad that his fingers have bled a few times due to biting too much skin off. He has always been a clingy child and quite shy but since starting school, has really come out of his shell so i don't understand what's happening. Perhaps because i have a 10 month old daughter, and that he always seems to get into trouble and told off and she doesn't? I don't thinkl he has any issues with his sister as he adores her and they get on well. Need urgent advice please!

Hi I'm 32 now and I've done exactly this since I was about your sons age. I don't really have any magic ideas but I wanted you to know there wasn't anything bothering me when I started doing it, so try not to feel it's something you're doing,... and .. unfortunately I have done it all my life and still do it now despite basically trying everything. And I do mean everything.

When they are particularly bad I put plasters on them .. but then if I have a really bad urge to do it I.will rip.the plaster off !

The one thing I would say is that even though it looks awful it doesn't actually hurt me to do it. At all.

I have since found out it is part of ocd and is called compulsive skin picking.

Some find cbt therapy from the GP to be useful to try and break the habit but it's never worked for me..

I don't bite the nails at all and I have really good nails, but it's just the skin.

Hi Feellike, before you think this is a life-long OCD thing, just wanted to say my daughter started doing this when she started school - fingers and toes bleurgh! She had an appointment with a paediatrician for another issue and I mentioned it to him. He just said she was obviously a very sensitive girl and was perhaps unsettled by starting school etc, even though she seemed fine, and that I should try not to make a big deal of it. She probably did it for about 6 months but then somewhere along the way just stopped. By the time I finally realised she wasn't doing it anymore, her toenails and fingernails were in serious need of a trim! So maybe give it a bit of time and see if it resolves itself first? Hard I know!