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karenp , 26 Sep 2011

Face Picking

I am 33 years old and have been suffering from face picking for 3 years now... My face looks horrible and I feel so bad about my behavior... but when I look at myself and at what I have done, the disgust makes me keep picking... I cant look in the mirror without going into full picking sessions so I try to stay out the mirror as much as possible... but I am constantly tormented by the thoughts of picking... does anyone have any advice/strategies to help me stop???
1 Answer
kgolden1234567890
October 04, 2011
I have had a LOT of luck with the amino acid N-acetyl cysteine, which is sometimes sold as N-acetyl L-cysteine, for my 11-year-old daughter who severely picks her skin (arms and legs). I'm hoping that everyone on this group will check it out. We started out at 1200mg each day, 600mg in the morning and 600mg in the evening. Then we worked up to 2400mg, 1200 mg in the morning and 1200 mg in the evening, within about 3 or 4 weeks. The study that was done in 2009 showed the best results were after 9 weeks of continuous treatment with this amino acid, also just known as NAC. We saw great results after 6 weeks. Please consider trying it. I am not a doctor, so please weigh out the risks for yourself. It has truly been a godsend. My daughter used to pick to the point of staph infections. She has scars all over her body. It works by regulating the URGE to pick. You can download the summary text of the 2009 study on this website - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19581567. The study was for hair-pulling, but skin-picking and nail-biting result from similar sets of urges.

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