[Indie'sOK]

Hi,
I was a nail biter from 6 years old up until I stopped about a month ago. I'd always bitten them to the quick, and had torn, ragged fingernails. I'd tried everything to get myself to stop, but the only thing that worked was constantly painting my nails so that I'd leave them alone. Now they are longer, but my constant biting has caused my nail beds to be very short and the nails now curve upward. It's hard to avoid trauma because I'm always picking things up with my nails now, and I'm afraid that since there is no nail bed to support the nails, they will break. My question is, do nails eventually reattach to the nail bed? My mom says they do, but it takes a long time, literally years, for it to happen.

[Perna]

Onychophagia. "Long-term nail-biting can also interfere with normal nail growth and cause deformed nails."

http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/t...topic-overview

"Once a nail separates from the nail bed for whatever reason, it will not reattach. A new nail will have to grow back in its place. Nails grow back slowly. It takes about 6 months for a fingernail and up to 18 months for a toenail to grow back."

http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-a...topic-overview

[Indie'sOK]

Thanks for the info Perna. I've got to start leaving my nails alone...I can't stand to go without polish, so I give myself a manicure every couple of days. The polish remover I use is making them weak. But it's better than biting them again!

[Perna]

I don't know. I don't see nail biting as necessarily bad; I bit mine until I was 53-54 years old. I do not manicure mine, just don't bite them very often. Getting rid of a lot of my anxiety in therapy is what I credit for the change. I would not want to spend all that time and "mental" effort on the not-standing-to-go-without-polish and having the polish remover be almost as harmful to my body as the biting; I'd rather they were "my" nails, not the polish remover's

[Evening]

I bit my nails too, I HATE it passionately. I recently spent months growing them and did pretty damn well, but recently I've started biting them again and am getting so depressed I nearly end up in tears about it. Dramatic I know, but it's just another failure, you know? And they look so rank, I'll bite them to the point my fingers bleed. I wish I could stop. So I hope you manage to as well.

[Indie'sOK]

Thank you Evening. It's not that I can't stand to go out without polish - I love the look of natural nails - it's that I will start biting them again if I don't have polish on. So I try to keep it on most times so my nails stay long. I hate biting them as well because I have short, chubby fingers anyway so nails just make them look better