* (restored)
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– from: http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/yucky/scab.html
You’re running around with your friend, laughing your head off, when suddenly you trip over a rock and hit the ground. As you pick yourself up, you notice that your knee is bleeding. But while you’re trying to figure out where that rock came from, the blood from the cut on your knee is already busy at work creating a scab.
As soon as you scrape or break the skin anywhere on your body, special blood cells called platelets (say: playt-lits) spring into action. Platelets stick together like glue at the cut, forming a clot. This clot is like a protective bandage over your cut that keeps more blood and other fluids from flowing out. The clot is also full of other blood cells and thread-like stuff called fibrin (say: fy-brin) that help hold the clot together.
So now you’re home, you’re cleaned up, and you’re not bleeding anymore. But things are still happening on your knee. As the clot starts to get hard and dries out, a scab forms. Scabs are usually crusty and dark red or brown. Their job is to protect the cut by keeping germs and other stuff out and giving the skin cells underneath a chance to heal.
If you look at a scab, it probably just looks like a hard, reddish glob. But under its surface, all kinds of things are going on. New skin cells are being made to help repair the torn skin. Damaged blood vessels are being fixed.
White blood cells, the kind that fight infection to keep you from getting sick, go to work by attacking any germs that may have gotten into the cut. White blood cells also get rid of any dead blood and skin cells that may still be hanging around the cut. By the time it’s all done, a new layer of skin will have been made.
Eventually, a scab falls off and reveals new skin underneath. This usually happens by itself after a week or two. Even though it may be tough not to pick at a scab, try to leave it alone. If you pick or pull at the scab, you can undo the repair and rip your skin again, which means it’ll probably take longer to heal. You may even get a scar. So let that scab sit there — your skin will thank you!
The Heart of the Matter – Picking Scabs
from: http://www.skinpick.com/picking-scabs
“Pick one scab and leave the others alone. Make the one your friend”
As bizarre as these words may seem to some people, others will find a great deal of relief, camaraderie, even wisdom in them. They are, in fact, the advice one sister gave to another when discussing their mutual compulsions to pick obsessively at the scabs that form on their bodies.
Scab picking is a form of excoriation, just as picking at the skin is. When picking scabs, however, the picker will pick at scabs that have been caused from any trauma, be it accident or result of earlier picking episodes.
Picking scabs is a remarkably self-perpetuating way to act out obsessive-compulsive tendencies that often signal an underlying, often as-yet-undiagnosed mood or anxiety disorder. Patients often describe the experience as comforting even though painful. And very unsightly.
A common symptom of scab picking is eating the scabs after picking.
This form of skin picking disorder can be difficult to spot from the observer’s perspective. The person experiencing the scab picking behavior knows the results are unsightly and repulsive to others. For this reason, he or, usually, she will limit picking scabs to just the areas of the body that are most often hidden under clothing.
Repeated infections at the scab picking sites become problems that can have significant consequences. Permanent scarring is almost always a result of the behavior and sometimes the scarring can be profound and disfiguring.
There seems to be a great deal of shame associated with this obsessive-compulsive skin picking behavior, even more so than in other types of skin picking. Many people who suffer with this compulsion know they are doing something that is considered undesirable, even disgusting (to others), but they find it almost impossible to stop nevertheless.
What causes scab picking?
Habitual picking of scabs is classified in the group of psychological disorders associated with self-harm, such as deliberate skin cutting, head banging, and burning oneself. These actions are more often associated with girls than with boys and scab picking often starts when the subject is age 13 or 14.
Psychological symptoms that are often associated with picking scabs are depression, low self-esteem, addiction, eating disorders, and anxiety. A history of trauma or some sort of abuse is almost always involved.
Quite often the habit gets started as a way to relieve the pent-up frustrations or fears when other ways of dealing with conflict are not effective. Feeling that verbal communications are ineffective leave the scab picker feeling there is no other way to express the emotional turmoil going on inside.
Most people will pick a scab from time to time with no significant harm done. It’s when the act of picking the scab brings on emotional relief, desired pain, or pleasure that medical intervention is advised.
For more information about the scab picking disorder , its causes and treatment options, get the Complete Guide to Picking Disorders today.
Some Alternatives to Eating Real Scabs:
Some Very Cool Pictures of Noble Scabs:
This picture makes me envious……..
A Very Cool Mum playing with her child’s scab
Making Money From Scabs.
This is a link to an insurance company compensation website.
How to Use site and diagram:
1. Work out how much money you need
2. Click on the interactive body provided with details of injury to which part of the body
3. Keep doing until required sum of money appears
4. Go do it
5. Claim motherfucker, claim.
Acquiring a Scab – Ok so now you have read all about them, some of you maybe wondering – ‘hey how do I get one’, well here goes.
OK and if you are in the Military there’s a whole load of ways of acquiring scabs denied to us who are not:
The Cool Sounds of Scabs:
Three standout bands are The Rolling Scabs, Scabs and Human Skab.
The Rolling Scabs
The Rolling Scabs were a short-lived punk group fronted by two 13-year-old boys. The group played several gigs in and around San Francisco in 1988. They weren’t brothers, but they acted like it, they were best friends, and were born the same day on the same year.
One of the kids, Giuliano, died two years later, crushed by an elevator when he was horsing around in an abandoned building in Connecticut.
The Rolling Scabs first ever gig was at the legendary punk haven The Gilman Street Project in Berkeley. A cassette board tape of this was released by band member Li’l Mike on a limited edition of 500 7-inch EP on pus-colored vinyl.
Around the World in 80 Seconds
My Mom Smokes Pot
We’re The Scabs
Standout tracks..I Hate My Teacher and My Mom Smokes Pot…
They have a cool website @ http://www.rollingscabs.com/
Scabs
Scabs are an Austin, Texas band that performs very infrequently, but you can listen to Scabs here:
Fast Food Shuffle
Crackhead
The Human Skab
Is a thirty three year old musician who when he was ten was described as:
“This 10 year old kid knows how to punk rock real good, breath taking like a screaming demon, throwing rocks at windows, killing all the communists, things that you wouldn’t normally try yourself. Something you leave to the experts. — Sound Choice July 1987
“If Captain Beefheart were ten years old, this is what he’d probably sound like” — Spin May 1987
You can hear more Human Skab at his myspace page:
NEXT IN MY ‘NOBLE THINGS TO HAVE ON YOUR BODY’ SERIES:
PUS…COMING SOON.
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi, D!!!! May ‘Gone’ meet your standards. Maybe today’s post is a distant relative of yours, ha ha? It’s true the French seem to especially fall in love with foreign stars and artists who speak French. Understandably. I really should have forced myself to learn it fluently. I’ll just go ahead and put a down payment on the chateau I’ll be able to buy with my SCAB dolphin buttplug proceeds right now. Thank you, life saver. Love spending a few seconds trying to think up the perfect riposte to Baggyfreak’s charming question then deciding, oh fuck it, and chloroforming him with one hand while speed dialing an Uber with the other, G. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Me too (no discernible talent, making collages). I stupidly always used rubber cement in my collages so they’re crispy and brown now. I really like your piece on Expat. Is it from the novel you’ve been mentioning you’re working on? Oh, my email is denniscooper72 @outlook.com. Thanks! Later gator. ** Misanthrope, That they do. I don’t recognise the name Callum but I’ll try to find him on FB. There used to be a d.l.called Callum long ago, but surely a different fella. I like that title: ‘Between Two Worlds’. That ‘Crazy Train’ riff must be hard, no? Maybe not. But surely. ** Sypha, Thanks, James. ** G, Hi, G! Great to see you! Hope you like it. It’s … what it is, that’s for sure. You good, pal? Love, me. ** Bill, That little Gabriel Blackwell text is very interesting. I’ll seek out the totality. No reference to the Bernhard novel, I’m imagining? Although the Bernhard is also dense, compressed, but differently. Thanks! ** _Black_Acrylic, Aw, thanks, Ben! And even more thanks for that latest Play Therapy. It made my brain swim. Hm, yeah, I do always think you as a Scotland guy. Fight for your right, man. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. I’m guessing ‘Gone’ will be ‘on the shelves’ for a while. Thank you. You pulled an almost Fassbinder-y all-nighter. As it should be. How many Fassbinders haven’t you seen? I think I’ve seen almost all of them, although I should go check his CV. Ha ha, I wound up paving over ‘Jurassic World’ with more hugely budgeted ‘garbage’ in the form of ‘Dark Phoenix’. I won’t make any kind of case for it, but I will say it was 100+% more fun than ‘JW’. But I hope to now pave over ‘DP’ with something actual and in a theater even, I hope. ** jamie, Hi, Jamie. Thanks! Yeah, when Infinity Land asked to publish that scrapbook, I had to have a real think about that because, as you say, it was made for my eyes only. I didn’t know there are Leif Garrett porns out there, and, without even seeing them, I feel like I can declare them fakes, at least if they’re supposed to date from his star days. He did turn into a huge drug mess in his adult years, so I suppose anything circa then would be possible. But maybe I’ll check. Well, do the dark rides then. They’re my favorites, even much more than the coasters, and you can handle them, for sure. It is very nice indeed to be talking with you again daily, I must say. My Tuesday was nice. A bit too warm for me, but everyone but me surely thought it was glorious outside. Did a bit of Tuileries hanging and bought the new issue of The Wire and had coffees and so on. My friend Michael’s kid is … I forget, 3 years old maybe, and he talks a veritable blue streak and basically nothing but the weirdest poetry. Have the greatest Wednesday, sir. xo ** Damien Ark, Hi. Well, your description of your current writing woes sounds awfully familiar from many times in my writing history, and, if so, yeah, the blockage will just vanish unexpectedly at any time for no discernible reason. Strange stuff: inspiration. Take care, maestro. ** Steve Erickson, I don’t keep up with true crime like I used to when it was housed in sensationalised print magazines. There is some true crime podcast out there hosted by a guy named Dennis Cooper, which I only know because people occasionally think he’s me. You can’t do what I do or try to do in my fiction in visuals without either coming off ludicrous or assaultive and numbing. It’s just not possible. With writing, it’s a 50/50 power split between reader and writer. With visuals the viewer has almost no power, at least in the moment of viewing. Everyone, Mr. Erickson has reviewed Japanese Breakfast’s new album JUBILEE right here. Thanks! ** Okay. Long ago there was a d.l. of this blog who sometimes called himself Put The Lotion in the Basket and sometimes called himself Stoopid Slapped Puppies. His real, or at least ‘real’, name was Nick Brooks, and he was quite a brilliant guy. I often wonder whatever happened to him. Anyway, he made the yummy post you have before you today. See you tomorrow.
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