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: Chronic Onychophagia
Sep 23, 2006

Chronic onychophagia is the clinical name for nail biting, a pretty common “bad habit”. A girl sat next to me in a class in high school that was a compulsive nail biter, right down to her fingers, which looked horribly infected as the mouth can transfer bacteria and viral infection. There are even medications prescribed for this problem. I suggest dipping those fingers in extremely hot chili pepper oil. 😉

I don’t bite my nails, but I have kind of dry hands so sometimes my cuticles or the skin under it will crack and split and I will bite off the little corners of skin. Horrible I know. Being vegetarian I’m sure to always spit them out. 🙂 I’m working on it, really it just requires a bit of regularly applying lotion, I just, dislike lotion, I like my hands dry and non-greasy, it’s good for drawing. I don’t usually use nail clippers though either, I use the “soda can tab method”. I just use my other fingernails to tear them off when they get too long, I’m pretty precision at it, but we could probably all do well to spend some time with our good friend, the fingernail clippers.

22 Comments

  1. Flux says:

    Dipping your fingers in extremely hot chilli peppers usually doesn’t work, even if you use the best mustard or tabasco or whatever, there can only fit somuch on one’s fingers, and it’s quite tasty to lick them :p

    About the skin biting, I do that too, never the nails, always the skin, depending on if I’m alone or not, I’ll spit it out (kinda hard to spit it out when you’re in a classroom, but easy when you’re working in a factory)

    Although in the factory, I wear gloves, so I can’t bite anything (if I tried, I’d have my mouth full of iron dust) ^^

    BTW, after all these comics, still doing a great job, keep them coming 😉

  2. Bandman says:

    Great story here.
    One question, how are you doing this from last week? It says this was posted on the 23rd, and it is the 27th today. Still in that time machine?

  3. I didn’t know you were a vegitarian.

  4. Jonah says:

    woot! nice job tyler!

  5. bobo says:

    i know what you mean about chewing the skin, i do the same thing.
    anyways another great one!

  6. Lee says:

    Of course, swallowing your own skin wouldn’t exactly count as carnivorous behaviour… more like cannibalism really.

  7. Leigh says:

    Gross…

  8. Phizlo says:

    I heard of people being nail biters, but bears . . . no. And I never knew you were a vegetarian, Tyler.

  9. Joerpo says:

    I don’t know if Zack was gonna tell you this, but I was the fraud Hannah. I’m never going to post on this site again, but will post under a different name. Sorry Hannah, but remember, I will still be on the site, just as somone else. So beware, your best friend on this site could be me Hannah, Joepro the the Identefy theif.
    P.S., When Tyler posted last week, it was really me.

  10. frank says:

    why do you do that? thats just mean

  11. Zack says:

    well case solved anyways. OK fine i did nothign XP. Its was actually him being sorta honest but ya, he’s the identify thief XP.

  12. hi people.
    joepro, ERRG!!!!!!!!!!!! RAR!!!!!!!!!!! I cant believe u did soemthing so stupid.
    and u stole Tyler’s indentity too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    but on the other hand, thanks for stopping being such an idiot.
    i was getting really mad. like this 👿
    did anyone else know that Joepro was the imposter?
    well lets get back to normal.
    heres my penguin fact:

    The African penguin is also called the Blackfooted penguin for its black feet (duh)
    and the Jackass penguin for the braying sound it makes. 😀

    well byebye. 😉

  13. oh and PS-i knew Tyler was a vegetarian.
    read the commentary thing on this one.

    http://wallyandosborne.com/2005/07/25/vegetarian-chocolates/

  14. Bryan says:

    Drama!

    ps no updates since last Saturday… 🙁

  15. BriaN says:

    I have a much more interesting way of trimming my nails… I play water polo for my high school and we have nail checks every game so most of the time most of us just file our nails using the concrete outside the pool… well that’s usually only right before the nail checks if they tell us to cut them then we go grab clippers.

  16. Jesse says:

    I confess guilty to nail biting. Your not alone wally.

  17. Sheena says:

    Wally, you are not alone. 😀

  18. Jai Inder says:

    Too bad. Nails are gross. I wouldn’t want those in my mouth. Heck, I wouldn’t want those in my soup. I wouldn’t want those even NEAR my soup. I love soup 🙂

    So Joe…maybe you’d like to stop stealing peoples identities. I mean, I’m not gonna be all judgemental like last time, but don’t you think people will feel much better knowing you aren’t saying things they wouldn’t say for them? Maybe if you were saying the things you knew they wanted to say, but are to shy too… hmm Well it’s ok by me as long as you can read minds.

    Comic=funny Critique=boring PARTY=AWESOME!

  19. Phill says:

    I also suffer from onychophagia. Hehe, that’s a cool word. I’m going to use it all the time now. 🙂

  20. axis says:

    i’m a nail biter too

  21. ostrich girl says:

    hey, to all those who bit their nails… it’s a nasty habbit in more ways then one.
    did you know that scientific studies have proved that 90% of dirt that’s under your nails isn’t dirt at all but in fact dried up feces(the scientific word for poop)? the other 10% is what you had for dinner.
    so next time you find yourself nibbling your nails, give thought to what’s under them…
    anyways, on that appitizing note, i love the detail on wally’s nails in pannal 3
    nice

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