My daughter picks her skin! Non stop! Up and down both arms, her legs, side, bottom, face and ear!! I'm trying so hard to get her to stop! She is so pretty and I'm afraid she is destroying her skin! Idk what to do to curb this. She is already on medication, and it's helped some, but she still picks at fresh skin till it bleeds and then picks the spots over and over so they never heal!! She is covered and she does it when she is happy and playing or when she is upset or anytime really!
My brother , used to pick so severely that he had lesions that were like 3rd degree tissue burns. Our psychologists recommended the oddest thing or at least thats what we thoughtat the time. He told us to ignore!! In essence what his suggestions were was to not draw any attention to the picking behavior , if they pick till they bleed just give them a klennex say clean-up. In the meantime while your "ignoring the picking"focus on something else that is bothersome to them- example my brother hates closed doors so we would go close the door, he also prefers window curtains to be open at all times , so we would close them, he likes only certain tv channels so we would change the channel.Usually after 2 or 3 distractions he would be less focused on the picking. Over time his picking greatly reduced he still has time where he does pick but Thank God it has never gotten to the point that it was before we started the behavior plan.
Here is one of the study using PharmaNAC for skin picking.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24311388/
There are others as well but pharmaNAC is best one to use as turns to liquid and tastes great.
NAC has been shown in studies to reduce skin and hair picking. There was also a double blind study showing it reduced irritability in ASD. It is a OTC supplement that is safe so I would try that first. 500mg 3x day.
have you tried going gluten and dairy free? or soy free? I know that it can help. Dairy is easier to do, but quitting gluten is well worth it if the results are positive. we had great results when we gf/cf
How is it going? I need the same help.