Oh, man! I pick at red lights, too! I get honked at for not noticing the light turned green! How embarassing! I'm afraid I'm going to wreck someday because I've noticed a bump and not the car slamming on the brakes in front of me...knock on wood.

hi, i have the same skin problemo...it is basically arm acne-not the *****ly red/ bumpy kind(which my brother has, and could care less about), and i do get the urge to pick!! as a matter of fact, my skin is in recovery from a pick session i just had earlier today. it is really hard not to pick-i know all im doing is making scars, but i feel most of the time that id rather have a red mark than a nasty whitehead on my arm. sorry, arms. thank god for 3/4 length sleeves.

i pretty much have tried everything under the sun to clear this stuff up. today, i went to the bath and body works to see if i could find a new scrub to use...instead i found something called OVER THE BUMP, part of the TRUE BLUE line, which is actually for ingrown hair/razor bumps. the thing that caught my eye was that it has these ingredients: GLYCOLIC ACID, LACTIC ACID, & SALICYLIC ACID($15). it comes in a mess free bottle too, which is basically one of those old rollerball deodorant bottles. i figure anything is worth a shot, and if i dont have to go to bed with some greasy, heavy, pricey, heavy goo on me, IM DOWN. it goes on easy and is not greaz-eee. im sure it has some kind of soothing properties too, if it is intended for your crotch-a-toral area. so, i just buff puffed my arms with some sulfur soap i got in the latin section at cvs(sorry if you dont live in an ethnic area-you might not find it) $1.80- frikin cheap, but im sure you can find some good stuff at any natural food stores nearby. i forget the name of this other sulfur-msm stuff i used to get there that has a really nice citrus smell, but is a couple bucks more. anyhoo-i hope this helps a bit...summer is a *****, and i would like to wear short sleeves/ tanks at some point. most people say they dont even see what im talking about, but everyone has something they are sensitive about, and this is just one of those things. i know it isnt the end of the world, and nobody is perfect.

we'll see how this goes, but here is a list of other **** i have tried:
rentin a/ eucerin compounds
hydrocortizone creams/ointments, neosporin
carmol prod.
scrubs...neutrogena, body shops, sulfur soaps, zapzyt soap, loofahs, loofah gloves.
various body washes
johnson and johnson clean and clear lotion
benzoyl peroxide creams
dermadoctor kp duty cream(waiting to see when the scrub is back in stock, havent tried it yet.)
buckets of eucerin
aqua glycolic astringent
glycolic acid lotions
aloe vera gel
MSM lotions
"clear complexion" body lotions
"clear complexion" body scrubs
hiding under long clothing( at times, i have a bit of KP on my calves/under my knees/thighs, and the ol' arse. yay!!

good luck, ill keep ya posted, and try not to type so much.

thanks,

c funk.


last summer my arms were lookin pretty good...i was mostly just alternating/using both
stridex pads(the one with the darker blue label-w vitamins) and those benzoyl peroxide wipes that come in lil packets before i went to bed at night. i would also wash with zapzyt soap in the shower, which i cannot find at the store now, son of a B. i think in a case of KP like this...you have to really just treat it like acne. after a pick spree, i find hydrocortizone ointment helps calm the redness, and if i recall that is what the derma used to tell me to put on it. other than that-i try my damndest not to pick, and will even wear long sleeves in summer if i feel the need. we should make a pack to not pick- EVER AGAIN! ha.

ha, im in the thumbsucker club too.

I pick all the time especially when I'm bored. I usually start looking around and finding little white dots or red ones that look ripe for picking. I've been picking since 6th grade, I'm 16 now, during reading because I was so bored. I haven't stopped and I don't want to. My kp doesn't bother me too much, probably because I thought it was just the way God made me. Well, I was wrong. It's a skin condition. My picking is causing scars? Well, now I know and I still don't know if I want to stop. Somehow, it feels right or something. I like picking at stuff even scabs. I'm bad. I have no self control.

Red'n'bumpy: you remind me of how I was when I was 16. I loved to pluck my eyebrows and pick any/every bump or scab I could find. I didn't just pluck my eyebrows, I actually would look for dots of hair below the skin, then use a needle to try to excavate them so I could pluck them out. My eyebrows would be so red that I'd have to put a lot of foundation on them (and it never matched my skin tone correctly because I'm really pale). I also got a lot of eyebrow infections where my skin would swell and scab and fill with pus or be painfully inflamed. At one point my mom made me go see a doctor but I wouldn't confess how it happened so he just prescribed topical antibiotics.

I worked very hard to overcome this problem once I graduated from college. I don't pluck obsessively anymore but now my eyebrows are permanently red. I still wear foundation and powder around them but I hope, with time, the redness will fade.

I hope you will try to care about what you're doing to your body. We only get one body and, as I've learned perhaps a little too late, we need to respect it. Since you're bored, have you tried to find an interest or hobby? That has helped me the most. You could try running, lifting weights, gardening, sports, art...anything to re-focus your mind. You will find pleasure in doing other things besised picking, which I believe to be self-destructive behavior.

Okay, getting off the soapbox now. PS I'm turning 30 this year.

I'm glad i'm not the only one with this obsession.
I tried pumicer's method because people had mentioned that
it decreases your desire to pick since you s****e them away with
the pumice stone. Unfortunately, the pumicer had erased most of the informative thread before I had a chance to get all the details on this method.

Does anyone know if you should moisturize after the alcohol/peroxide?
My skin feels very dry and more scaly than before in certain patches but other parts have cleared up a lot. Is this normal? Thank you to everyone for all the helpful info!

Finding this forum has been so comforting!

Thank you for caring so much. I will try to stop picking. After reading more, I made a promise to myself to cut down picking. Actually, I am doing pretty great. I have a sunburn now, so that's pretty distracting. But thank you again. Your caring means a lot.

Wow, I just happened to run accoss the this web site and I had no idea so many people had the same problem. I have had KP since pubert (Im now 36) and I've been picking just as long, needless to say my arms are a mess. It's down my whole arm and I pick at my entire arm. So even 3/4 sleeves don't work for me, I spend most of my days in long sleeve shirts. I wish I would have tried to stop years ago, now it's become such a habit I don't know if I can stop. Even if I did stop my arms are so scared they will never look the same.

What I'm trying to say is, if you haven't started picking, DON'T!!! It will ruin your arms and I think the more you pick the worse it gets.

Red and Bumpy Teen- I think you are funny. You have a great sense of humor. I remember dealing with this when I was 16 and it was really bad on my face. Keep on being positive and funny and you will be just fine.

Hi.
This is my first post on here im a very new member. Im 19 now and I've had KP on my arms since I was probably 10. I always thought it was just "chicken skin" like my mom and brother have. I would start to pick at it when I was young too cuz I just felt this insatiable urge to get the stuff out. I don't even know what the heck is in it, but I know that I want it out and i feel like if i pick at them it'll go away and i'll finally have smooth arms. But instead it swells up and turns all red and looks horrible that I have to cover them up. My mom would always yell at me to stop picking at my arms and that I was making it worse, she thought I was just picking at my skin and would make me feel bad cuz she would point out other peoples upper arms and how they have no scars. And to this day I am insanely jealous of girls who have perfectly smooth upper arms. And people constantly point out my arms obnoxiously exclaiming rude comments that embarass me. I have recently discoverd the name of this skin disorder and was researching when i came upon this site. Im so glad there are other people I can relate too and that I am not alone in this. I havent tried anything to treat it or seen a dermatologist yet. Everytime I shower though I scrub my upper arms with an exfoliater, which doesnt do very much, the scars and bumps are always there. Alright this is depressing me, I'm gonna leave it at this.

Christina, don't give up hope! So many of us are trying to find what works for each of us, and every one is different. That is what is great about this site, is that you have so many suggestions, that eventually you could find what works for you. We all have to go thru a trial and error period to find what will "work" since we are all so different with the same issue. I picked like mad when I was young, and have the scars to prove it. I'm *still* working on not picking. But I have found a product (www.alphahydrox.com), Enhanced Lotion (10% glycolic acid. also known as alpha hydroxies) that seems to be working for me. I don't know if I'll ever have scar and bump-free arms, but I feel like I'm getting close. Keep reading the posts and try some of the treatments. Good luck, and take care!

Last night I had a breakdown over my picking. It makes me feel weak and worthless and just dissapointed in myself.

At one point I was using a prescription: Mometasone Furoate Cream USP, .1%... which helped greatly. Within two days my arms felt smoother and the number of bumps decreased dramatically. However, I didn't stick with it, and now I'm back to my picking. It has left brown dots as result of scarring and I've been at it for at least a year.

Last night i was researching my picking problem and discovered that it was self-mutilation. When i do pick, it's so relieving i have to move on to the next.. and the next... And of course when i finish i feel worse than when i started.
I live in Texas and its not fun wearing long sleeved shirts to hide it. So most the time i just deal, and feel like everyone is staring at it, though i know most of that is just my imagination.

My doctor also recommended MICRODERMABRASION to get rid of those scars and reduce the symptoms of KP rapidly. Though this would be an expensive alternative. But to think of all the products some KP victims buy and try with no results. Is it worth it?

anyone else have probs w/ picking?

OH YES! There's a whole thread devoted to us OC pickers! Join the madness! And then try the Awaken Sea Salt Scrub I use (makes it really hard to pick because you can't get a bump between your nails. It leaves a silky sheen that's not oily) or some people use the Eucalyptus Sugar scrub. I haven't heard whether it makes it difficult to pick or not, though...

I'm in the same boat and sympathise with all of you. I always make my KP so much worse by my picking addiction. I don't know what on earth makes this an addiction for us, I just can't work it out, why we do this to ourselves. I tend to see my tendency to pick as a form of self-harm. I want to get out the bad that I see laying under the surface of my skin, and whether I subconsciously relate that to the bad in my psyche I don't know.
I felt so isolated and weird before I found this forum and found out that other people did the same things and had the same thing.
I thing the idea of keeping an emotional journal is a good idea. I realised that I usually picked late at night when I was tired and my defences were low, so I try to get to bed early, have a strict routine that I stick to and get into bed asap. I also make sure I'm not left in the bathroom for long (with the tweezers) or left unattended at night to try and limit the chances of me picking.
If I could just stop picking then my skin would heal and I could start to really treat my KP properly. But there is such an urge to pick when I see those spots and bumps. But, like a junkie, for today I haven't picked.
I hope we all find a way, good luck people!