It’s a real word…it’s a real condition. For those of you that haven’t ever heard of it before (and I’m guessing there are a few out there) it’s a condition where you obsessively compulsively pick at your skin. Don’t get me wrong. If you have a pimple and you squeeze it, you don’t have Dermatillomania.
However, you do have it if you do it obsessively, if you do it to the extent of it starting to physically affect your life. Some people use their fingernails, some bite, some use tweezers, some scissors…and often it’s done on otherwise healthy skin.
I have Dermatillomania.
It’s hard for me to admit that. I hide it a lot; I’m ashamed of what I’ve done to my body. Like many people with this, I have my target areas, and my main one is my shoulders and back. Now, I can never wear sleeveless t-shirts because of the extent of scarring. Right now, I have about 14 lots of picking that are all red and raised and sore. The scarring is far more extensive than that. It’s horribly noticeable.
Now I didn’t think it would ever really be much of a problem. Yeah, it affected my life to a severe extent – I have literally lost hours standing in front of the mirror picking at things. I’ve spent hours inspecting my skin and doing nothing but that. I’ve had to hurry to do assignments because I got too involved in picking.
But I didn’t think it would affect my health in any other way but causing a lot of scars. As it turned out, I was very wrong.
A few months ago, I got a pimple like thing on my leg. I pick at my upper legs a lot, and I have to admit, it made me very happy to find something that would let out some actual pus. So I squeezed it, of course, and it did what any pus filled thing would do. I didn’t think about it for a little while because I started to return to picking my shoulder.
And then one day I realised my leg hurt. I ignored it, thinking I had just knocked it against something. I didn’t think about it. I told myself it was nothing.
And then it turned from being sore to feeling like something had stabbed my leg. It hurt when I sat down, it hurt when I walked, and it hurt no matter what I did. So, feeling a little worried, I rolled the leg of my jean up – it was the middle of the day, on a Saturday – and found myself looking at a massive, bright red…thing.
It emitted heat. Anyone will tell you that it’s a bad sign when something starts to hurt like hell, is the size of a fifty cent coin in diameter, is bright red and emits heat. So I called the hospital – it was a Saturday and my doctor wasn’t open – and they put me through to a medical service that would answer my questions. After describing my symptoms, they told me to go to the emergency clinic. That would set me back $80 dollars, but it was either that or wait for several hours at the hospital. So I went to the clinic.
Long story short, I got an infection called Cellulitis.
I didn’t think of anything to ask the guy when I went there, but a few days later I found myself with many unanswered questions. I didn’t know who to talk to, so I decided to email a doctor that I knew…sort of. I followed his blog and asked medical advice before, anyway. This blog, by the way, is Doc Bastard – if you haven’t ever read him, GO AND READ RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE IS AWESOME. Click here if you haven’t. Seriously. It was the only thing that got me through the rough times.
Anyway, I asked the questions I should have asked when I went to the clinic: why did I get this huge red thing growing off my leg? How in the world can I prevent it? Also, what would have happened if I left it? How serious can these things be? And the thing I was most worried about…could my obsessive skin picking be the cause?
Now, Cellulitis is a bacterial infection. It’s treated with antibiotics, which is what I had, or it would have to get drained. Luckily I didn’t let it get that bad, but it could have spread if I had left it. The Dermatillomania was most likely the cause. So it got me thinking, and I asked what else it could cause.
The answer was skin infections…and necrotising fasciitis, which is a truly horrible disease, a flesh eating bacteria. If you don’t know what it is, click here, but be warned – the pictures are not pretty so don’t look at it if you’re squeamish! There’s also a risk of septicaemia.
So I was wrong. Dermatillomania could cause so much worse than what I thought. What happens – and Doc Bastard confirmed this for me – is that you touch something dirty, bacteria gets under your fingernails, you wash your hands but it doesn't truly go unless you scrape them clean with some sterile instrument...and then while squeezing and picking the life out of your shoulder so it’s all bumpy and red and sore, the bacteria gets into the open wounds...
I then asked how bad it could have gotten if I ignored it. Doc Bastard said there is no real way to tell. And to be honest, I don’t think I ever want to know how bad it could get.
So I decided to write this blog. Because, honestly, getting some infection that could be so very easily be prevented is not enjoyable at all. I didn’t know it could cause such serious effects and I think everyone needs to be aware of what can happen. Infections don’t just come from being dirty, they can come from picking your pimples and whatever else a little too much.
There’s another reason I’m writing this, though. As of now, for the next month, I’m not going to pick AT ALL. I’m going to do whatever I can to prevent myself from doing it. What’ll I’ll be doing is keep a diary of each day, and maybe even a video blog, to document the time. I know it doesn’t sound like much or very interesting for some people, but I want people to know that it’s possible to stop it, and I want to be successful in stopping it also. The more people that know, the less likely I’ll slip up.
It’ll be fun…or rather, interesting…but I’ll be successful. And I’ll post here this time next month telling you about how I was successful at stopping it. Maybe you won’t be interested in it, but maybe, just maybe, it’ll help others with this condition to stop putting their lives at risk.
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