Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter has recently started biting her arms over the past few weeks. She has many bruises on her arms which some are swollen. They range from big to small little ones and look very painful. She had to be held because of this yesterday in school. They explained that she was biting with extreme force so they held her to stop her. She's never done this before and I'm lost on what to do. Like, how do I prevent the worst injuries as much as I can without touching her because that makes it worse?
I don't know if it's normal but as child I would experiment making impressions on my my arm with my teeth, often biting hard but never drawing blood. One can draw blood through the skin however, by sucking the skin hard. We know why that happens, capillaries allow blood through to the outer layer of the skin as the vacuum created by sucking is too strong to prevent it. I grew out of it and it was never an issue as I'd discovered all I could about it and I wasn't diagnosed till late in life.
I remember when she was a child, her and her sister would always suck on their arms, not drawing blood but close to it.
Yes, like that. Seems it is a usual thing for kids to experiment with then, but not at a self destructive level.
Is the biting giving her a desired attention? Is she doing it to drive people away?
Thank you. She will play with her sensory toys whenever she feels like it. I know one time she distracted herself in a meltdown when I wasn't home. It was amazing. We've come so far. She was hurting herself, screaming, crying and she managed to take control and put her favorite Netflix Movie on in the middle of it all and used her chew toys aswell. It was great but I still don't know why it happened but its fine.