Anxiety, Stress, and Lip/Cheek Biting

So I need to stop biting lips and cheeks - I do it so often and it always looks like i have a herpe on my lip- Ive been doing it a few years - I have to load my lips up with vaseline but I swear it never goes away fast enough

Incredible! I only saw a couple of other people doing this and recognised it immediately. I have been doing this for 40 odd years and have quit a few times but returned to the same old bad habit. I have just read all the reviews and can now recognise the link with apprehension, anxiety, stress, competition, and maybe sometimes guilt. I find when I am deep in thought and have some kind of unknown fear, I do this. However, what I have noticed is that the cheeks and lips heal overnight when I use CORSODYL mouthwash. Right after flossing and brushing your teeth, gargle with this amazing mouthwash for a minute or so - do not rinse. The next day, my cheeks and lips are as good as new. Not to mention the fresh breath as I'm sure the smell of rank blood is unattractive to others, but they won't have any idea we're inflicting this horrible injury on ourselves! I intend to quit for good, as I don't ever want my dentist to find out. I gargle with CORSODYL for 72 hours before my dentist's appointment - so my cheeks are fab - but no more lies and deceit! It ends today. I'll just have to buy more chewing gum! Good luck to everyone who wants to quit. We're in this together - and we want to prevent cancer and any other horrible mouth diseases, so let's kick our fears, anxiety and other phobias and - let's do this!

I have been struggling with this for at least 10 years. I'm getting ready to turn 28. I am now to the point where I continue to do it everyday, throughout the day. It used to be where I would do it here and there, then it would completely heal and then I'd start all over. It is a very viscous cycle. I don't understaffed why or how I started. My mom does it but not to the level I'm at. It's It's daily struggle and I feel like the only thing that curbs it is gum but even so sometimes I can't control myself even with him in my mouth. My husband always tells me to stop by him telling me to stop does not work. I will stop when he's looking at me but then I'll do it when he is looking away. Like I'm trying to sneak it. I don't understand why it is do comforting to me. It's almost like when I'm doing it, I can just zone out. I do it when I'm bored, stressed or under stimulated. My mouth actually salivates when I do it. This habit is so bad that I feel like the only way for me to overcome is it is by mental strength. No person, no method, no drug can cure this. I truly believe I am at the mercy of mind over matter. How do I mentally overcome this? At times I will be so into biting away that my mind is telling me to just stop! JUST STOP IT! But my mouth and hands ignore my brain. My husband can tell when I've been doing it because I get to slanted creases above my lip that take a while to disappear. I'm terrified I am going to look older before I need to. I'm worried about making my teeth crooked. I had braces for 7years! My teeth were so straight and still are for the most part, but a couple are looking crooked and top and bottom teeth bite tip to tip. The top topcoat not overlap at all like they are supposed to. What is wrong with meee. I have the same feelings of everyone who is struggling with this. Lord help me quit this terrible habit.

I'm 22, n I have been picking my lips and nails and inside of mouth, since I was 4. I can't seem to stop it. I do it more when I watch movies, coz I have to do something with my hands all the time!! I dunno if it's a disorder, a nervous tick or jus a weird habit!!! When I was about 14, on a sudden impulse, I picked a little too much of my lips, and they started bleeding, and in a frenzy I picked even more, because of which my lips became darker ... Since then my lower lips have become darker esp in the corners... Now my main worry is to somehow restore my lips to its previous state, ie, without the dark marks... Is there anything I can apply, like cream or oil?? I don't wanna do any cosmetic surgery or something extreme. I know it will take a very long time but I am willing to do it. My lips arent that dark... In fact, when I smile or laugh, the dark marks are hardly seen. It's jus that the corners and the lower lip lip are a little darker!!! Any suggestions!!!

try to get wax from an orthodontist or ask around where to buy it! Maybe putting that on the inside of your teeth would help with the urge to smooth things out because the wax is so smooth. I used to use it for wires that poked me from my braces. Another thing you might want to look into is OCD. If you can't seem to stop if you find something that isn't perfectly smooth, maybe talk to someone about that.

I have a similar problem, I bite my lip and click my toung against my permanent retainer. I've had problems with things like it before but usually I'm able to kick it... not this time apparently! Good luck! Hope I helped.

another thing is to de-stress and take a day or more off to try and focus on something else! 

My sister has trich! But she pulled her hair out to the point where she had little hair left. She's doing a lot better now though. How you are too!

Have your dad say a code word instead so it's not a threat but more of a suggestion and it won't be obvious and embarrassing in public. Try meditation and exercise (it's harder to think about ways to bite your cheek when your running). Eat smaller meals throughout the day so your mouth has something to do. Also if I feel like I can't stop myself, I make hot tea for myself and keep making more until I forget about biting.

I have a few suggestions, as I've had this habit on and off for 50 years.  I also love to bite my nails although if I put polish on I don't do it much. Recently I had my dentist make a top and bottom retainer for my teeth. With these in, I can't bite the inside of my mouth, but this is costly, about $600.00 for both. You could try the boil and bite mouth guards they sell at sporting good stores. All you need is a little time to break the habit.

Also you might try to swish your mouth with Pepto Bismol. This speeds up the healing. I understand Milanta does the same.

as a last resort go to Wallgreens and ask the pharmacist for Gentian Violet. It cost $8:00.

 

 

Has anyone had one of their front teeth become less straight because of the chewing? I noticed it in some recent pictures and it has to be from my contant lip chewing. Ugh, I need to make a dentist appointment now. :(

Help.

I too am a chronic biter of the cheeks, lips, tongue, and nails. I have also been diagnosed with a disorder called trichotillomania. It is a disorder that consists of one pulling ones own hair out either consciously or subconsciously and sometimes leaving large bald spots or even ending up completely bald. All of these things are caused by anxiety and stress. I also have several different anxiety disorders, PTSD, OCD, and suffer from bipolar depression. There are a couple of reasons why we, or at least I, bite. 1-OCD. I can't stand the different texture when there's a piece of loose skin on my cheek/lip or a bump on my tongue or a jagged fingernail so I bite to try to smooth it out (knowing its only making it worse). 2-Stress relief...at least with chronic biting and hair pulling. It's the same concept as people who cut themselves. It's a subconscious thing. When we cut, or bite to the point of drawing blood and leaving big sores, or pull our hair out it causes pain. When the brain receives a signal of pain it releases endorphins to stop the pain. Those endorphins also calm us. The problem is that it only lasts a second then you have to inflict the pain again to have more of those 'feel good' endorphins released. Just like an addiction to anything else. I've read that some people enjoy biting and do it on purpose. It's because subconsciously we need those endorphins to calm us down as the 'nervous habit' is usually worse when we are under a lot of stress. I have managed to go the last 6 yrs without pulling my hair or at least to the point of big bald spots, which is totally embarrassing when your a female and you have to wear a hat all the time to hide it. But it was very hard to stop. At the advice of my counselor, I had to tell EVERYONE I knew, from friends to family, to make me stop touching my hair every time they saw me reach for it. It took months and months to completely stop and grow my hair back but they still catch me sometimes. I also found a solution for the nail biting...I wear acrylic nails so no more chewing my nails off to the point of bleeding but that leaves me with the cheek/lip biting. I cannot stop! My mouth is sooooo sore yet I keep chewing away. I was looking hear for a solution and maybe some advice from other biters on how to quit but it seems that no one else has the answers either. Gum does help some but I also have TMJ so chewing gum constantly isn't a great idea since it causes the temporomandibular joint (jaw joint) to become irritated from the constant movement and anyone with TMJ knows that it's not pretty when your jaw joint is inflamed. Talk about migraines (which I also suffer from), and one heck of an earache. Anyway, I guess it's just going to take a massive amount of will power and me making a conscious effort to stop just like with my hair pulling. Idk if the novel I just wrote helped anyone but sometimes knowing the reasons WHY we do things helps us to figure out what we can do to stop it. I feel for all of you fellow biters. Hope this helps or at least sheds some light on the subject. Best wishes and God bless!

Wow and to think i was the only one, ive had this problem for over 10 years now, it gets so severe that ontop of pressing my cheecks to my teeth and pretty much chewing. I also scrape the gums of where my theeth stand often with my fingernails or with a tooth pick.. the sad part is i know what the after math is swallon mouth ulcets lips and sometimes even under my tounge! I just cant stop specially when im stressed out or i cant sleep ive been to every specialst every doctors clinic! The only thing that helps is salt n water to help but nothibg to stop the addiction!! :(

I get in trouble too. I have been doing it for soooo long. before I used to bite myself to sleep but now I bite myself because im addicted to the pain. I bite myself until I bleed. I have tried stopping but it is sooo hard.

WOW i don't feel so alone after reading this. I do the same thing

I looked around the internet one day because i have the same problem. However, I had the additional problem of the skin on my cheeks sloughing (shedding) which was really gross so I looked up why. I got a lot of websites telling me that there were certain things in most common and popular toothpastes that I might be allergic to. They said it could  also be an alergy to something I ate/ingested or the whitening in my toothpaste they suggested trying different brands of toothpastes.

http://www.justanswer.com/dental/18zam-skin-inside-cheek-keeps-sloughing.html

I also have suffered from this anxiety driven habit for many years.  Everything that has been mentioned here in this forum I can relate to 100%, sadly.  I know where this behaviour began for me, so I can trace the when/why/how.  It is stopping that I haven't been able to conquer :(  I have a pretty bad case of TMJ, so my jaw and bite have always been misaligned.  I started mindlessly putting my cheek in between my teeth to bridge the gap in my bite due to the TMJ issue, and that's where the trouble began.  The cheek tissue would become rough, so I would bite it to "smooth" it out and it just continued from there.  I now also "nibble" at my lip and tongue tissue as well.  To the point of sores.  It is mindless and habitual.  My boyfriend has realized the risks to this habit and tries to always make me aware when I am doing it, but as my mind wanders or my anxiety increases it just happens again !

In the past the only thing that has stopped this briefly is when I had to wear a daily clear mouthguard on my top teeth to help with cartilidge that had slipped in my jaw (due the the TMJ issue).  Of course, I wouldn't want to wear that every day for the rest of my life, so the biting continued !  I cannot chew gum, it irritates the TMJ too much (major headaches), so I am still without a solution.

I worry about my oral health (no problems so far), and that I could be ruining my teeth eventually by doing this. 

I am not happy to hear that others suffer from the same problem, but I am happy to find that there are others looking to help themselves.  I hope once you find something that works for you, the rest of us can learn about it and find relief also.