Dd1 sucking and giving herself love bites on her arms? sensory?

[Marne]

A few of you may know my story (i posted in childrens health this morning).

Yesterday dd1 developed heat rash (which was fine, i kept her cool), this morning it looked worse and she complained of feeling ill and had a temp, i spted a mark on the top of her shoulder which looked like purple dots (like a love bite), she told me that she did not do it and had not hurt herself, because of the fever and feeling ill i phoned out of yours gp who wanted to send out an ambulance as she had a rash and a fever, the mark on her arm was similar to the meningitis rash. I told them that we didn't need an ambulance as she was not that poorly and would get upset so i was told to take her to hospital.
Doctor checked her over and was confused about the mark on her arm, we were sent home and told to come back if and more of these marks appeared and we were to take her straight to A&e.

Fast forward a few hours and i catch dd1 sucking her arm whilst busy on the pc. (so all that fuss for nothing, not a rash at all but love bites).

Anyway dd1 has AS and has nevr mouthed, sucked or chewed anything, usually anything other than food near her mouth makes her gag, so why has she started sucking her arms? Does anyone elses dc do this? how do i stop her?

Dd does not have AS, but she went through a stage of doing this earlier this year. She came out of school one day with 5 or 6 marks on her arms. She just said that she liked the way it felt and the marks it left! The stage went on for a few weeks and then stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Thank you, hopfully it wont last, i have explained to her about bleeding under the sking and told her if she sucks too hard she will get a blood clot , hopfully that will be enough to make her think before she does it again. She's very embaressed about the fact we had to go to hospital and we were all worried that she could have been very poorly.

Ds1 used to do this when he was a toddler. I remember panicking because he'd done it on the tops of both arms while I was carrying him and the resultant marks looked like bruises. I was terrified someone would think I'd grabbed and hurt him.

He just seemed to gradually stop doing it it and hasn't ever been one for mouthing thing since.

I think as Littlefish said it just feels nice, so is probably sensory in some way I suppose and the resultant rash/bruise would be a kind of instant secondary reinforcer.

Hopefully now you've explained about the bleeding and she's embarrassed about it she won't do it again.