I have a nasty habit of biting at my fingers. Not my fingernails, mind you, which would make sense - no, I favor the skin beside the nails. Yes, it’s weird and not very good for me and I’m trying to stop doing it, but I am curious to know whether I’ve done my fingers any permanent damage over the years.
The pad of one of my index fingers seems to have lost a lot of sensation. It’s the finger I nibble at most often, and sometimes I’ve pulled away too much skin, leaving a raw pink spot (I never draw blood, though). When I have a task requiring fine touch, I unconsciously use my middle finger, because it’s more sensitive.
Since I never draw blood, is it safe to assume that it’s only the epidermis I’m damaging? Touch receptors are in the dermis with the blood vessels, so the lack of blood leads me to believe that I probably haven’t torn out too many of the nerve endings themselves. And if the nerves themselves aren’t damaged, then what accounts for the dulled sensation in my fingertip? Have I basically created a callus by repeatedly damaging the skin? If I manage to control my nibbly habits, is there a chance that the sensation will come back gradually, or is the callusing process irreversible?
I’m not asking for medical advice, since this really isn’t a medical problem. What I really want to know is:
How likely is it that the loss of sensation is caused by a callus-like phenomenon?
Does a callus go away if you remove the source of irritation? If it does, does the sensation ever return to what it was before the callus developed? (Any ex-guitarists in the house?)
Having recently had an opportunity to remove about a centimeter of skin from my thumb, the sensitivity is probably significantly higher in skin that’s been underneath a callous. Distractingly so, as a matter of fact.
Callous is caused by repeated compression of the dead layers of skin. If you stop participating in whatever action is causing the compression, the damaged layers will slough off like any other bit of skin given enough time and be replaced by soft brand spankin’ new skin without the compression defects.
If you’re chewing off the skin because of the way it grows there (I’ll occasionally remove horny bits along the edge of my nails) invest in some cuticle nippers. If it’s a nervous habit, there are ways of breaking it.
I sucked my thumb well into adulthood and had a large callus on my thumb where it rested against my bottom teeth. When I finally quit sucking my thumb, the callus eventually disappeared. The thumb is completely normal in appearance and sensation now.
Not a guitarist, but a clarinetist, and had a large callus on my right thumb for years from supporting the clarinet with said thumb. When I stopped playing, the callus went away and now my thumb is as normal as ever.
I think you’ll be OK- I used to chew my nails and fingers until they bled (I stopped- yay!)
I’m not normally a “take a drug!” person, but you may want to ask your doctor if a med for OCD would help you quit doing it. FWIW, my hands (which have made people recoil they were so nasty) are now really pretty and all healed up.
I’d say try behavior modification before you go the medication route. Sometimes these things are just a bad habit and while it may take a while to break it, it can be done.
Get something that tastes really nasty and put it on your fingers. Nail polish remover works really well for this because they add a bitter-tasting agent to it to discourage young children from drinking it and poisoning themselves. It tastes AWFUL and it lasts until you wash your hands.
Keep your hands busy. What I used to do was get a paperclip and bend it in all sorts of shapes. They’re easy to carry around with you. Whenever you go to put your finger in your mouth, the bitter, nasty taste will stop you. As soon as that happens, take the paperclip from your pocket and start fiddling with it. (I liked to make little sculptures out of mine.)