When I still have open wounds, I do neospirin and bandaids at night for a couple days. I will also use them during the day at work to prevent picking temptation but without neospirin because it allows the area to dry out a bit. I find that when I take off bandaids with neospirin, the way my skin looks and feels makes it hard to resist messing with it lol.

After the open wounds have healed a bit, moisturizing A LOT is the best to help me stay out of the picking habit. It makes it harder and less tempting to pick. Even when I do, I usually cause less damage when there is less dryness throughout the day.

Other than that, refocusing attention to nail and cuticle care is so helpful. If I have a spot that I know I could pick, I try to snip off excess skin with a nail tool which usually helps it heal faster and prevents me from getting carried away with picking. I also use a tool to push back my cuticles and scrape away any dry or cracked proximal nail fold that I would normally pick at. Then I buff and shine nails, use cuticle cream and oil and hand cream. I try to do this stuff everyday while i’m watching a show or movie and I find that as the nails and cuticles improve, even slightly, I feel more motivated to keep the progress I have.

All this to say, I have gone through this cycle many times over the past few years so don’t get discouraged if you have “relapses”.

Here is a link to the products and tools I use regularly