# Kmottus a ?



## BQ (May 22, 2000)

I have eeny meeny miney moed as to which forum to ask this, but I settled here.(To Fearless Leader: please move if I settled wrong) I was looking for that thread from awhile ago on itching. I know, weird. The past couple days I wanna like just take my skin off, rake it & put it back on. I can't imagine why........







So if you have a minute, could ya point me in the right direction? Thanks. BQ


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## cookies4marilyn (Jun 30, 2000)

Yes, K, I snooped....BQ, here is K's reply re itching, but I don't know about a whole thread..I'll go back and check the other forum... in the meantime, here is what I found: (From K's post) ~ M["It is fairly normal for pain and itching to get worse when we try to relax and focus on just one thing. Our brains tend to operate at X amount of input and when we aren't filling that X up with things often the pain or itching will fill up the rest of the X so it feels worse.This is why sometimes we won't notice an itch or a pain until we lie down to go to sleep and then it becomes unbearable. That X amount of input is now available for the pain or itch to fill up.I would tend to think as long as it isn't so bad you can't concentrate at all you should be OK with the tapes. Afterall they still work for people who fall asleep during them, so as long as it can get in I would think you'd be OK. K."]Here is the only other thing I could find on itching after I searched all the forums: http://www.ibsgroup.org/ubb/Forum3/HTML/011272.html [This message has been edited by cookies4marilyn (edited 08-22-2001).]


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Not sure which thread, but I suffer from all over body itch mostly from allergies. It's just ever so plesant







.Is your skin drier than normal. Sometimes it itches just from that and moving up to a more potent moisturizer can help. Eucerin is usually the most heavy duty of the ones on the drug store shelf.Your brain normally wants X amount of input pretty much all the time. You can fill this up with things, but when you don't (like falling asleep, relaxing, etc.) the brain will fill up the X amount of input with whatever is handy. Itching and pain are a couple of stimuli the brain will latch onto when it doesn't have anything better to do.If the itching is new it may be worth trudging back to the doctor as itching can be a sign of various assorted problems and they may need to check some things out.Benedryl is usually a pretty good antihistamine for itching and is OTC. Prescription wise Claratin is supposed to shut down histamine in the skin really well (you normally have to be off of it for 3 weeks or more to get a scratch test done. I'm a freak however and can have a scratch test done while taking Claratin at the same time







). Sometimes people will find that Zantac (which is now OTC) or one of the other histamine-effecting acid blockers will work better on the skin than traditional allergy meds (Because the silly receptors missed the meeting that said all H1 receptors to the skin and all H2 receptors to the stomach and decided to go play whereever they wanted to). For itching that those things don't help Doxepin which is a tricyclic antidepressant (and the first ones of this class were orginally antihistamines before they found out they worked for depression) will block both H1 and H2 receptors really well (I take at night for itching).As a last ditch thing (when I got allergic to Birth Control pills) that will help is Clove Oil. You can find it at some pharmacies by the tooth ache supplies. It is an old fashioned topical anesthetic often used for that. If you put a couple of drops in the moisturizer before putting that on your skin it will numb the skin out for several hours. For me it was much more effective than Solarcaine (I was desparate at the time) which tended to wear off in 15-20 minutes and the itching seemed to bounce back and be worse when it wore off.K.------------------I have worked for the government and at universities doing scientific research primarily in the area of the environment and the impact of environmental factors on human health, I have never done any independant clinical testing for the pharmaceutical industry, nor have I ever worked for a drug company. I have no financial, academic, or any other stake in any commercial, natural, or any other product mentioned by me.My story and what worked for me in greatly easing my IBS: http://www.ibsgroup.org/ubb/Forum17/HTML/000015.html


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Thanks Marilyn & K,It has calmed down a bit. I took some anithistamines cause I remebered some of what you had said way back there. It has helped. I had to chuckle when I finally got around to reading your post K. Everytime you suggested something I went "Yep got some of that in the cabinet. Yep, good, I got that too." LOLBQ


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