A Conversation for Itches

Subclass of sneaky

Post 1

Dinsdale Piranha

What about the itch that appears the MOMENT you are unable to scratch it? Examples include the itchy back that appears when your dentist is up to his elbows in your mouth, and the itch that appears when you are just about to complete the amazingly complex manouevre that enables you to reach level 4000 on Doom (or whatever) for the first time.


Subclass of sneaky

Post 2

Bumblebee

One of the worst itches is the ones you get in the roof of the mouth, it just can't be scratched.

Could "needles and pins" in various limbs be classified as internal itch?


Subclass of sneaky

Post 3

Dinsdale Piranha

Not really. They're quite easy to get rid of. You just need to get your circulation going again.

Having said that they're really bad when you sleep awkwardly, then wake up with a joint of meat lying across you. Aren't arms HEAVY?


Subclass of sneaky

Post 4

Wand'rin star

Then there's the sub class of embarrassing itch, incrowded trains or lifts or standing in front of a class . If this happens often, go to the doc. It's probably worms, but it might be diabetes.smiley - sadface


Subclass of sneaky

Post 5

PointyTwist

Or the arch of your foot just as you finish lacing up a shoe. You then have two choices:

1. Take the shoe off and scratch, revealing a sock with a big toe sticking out, then retie the laces.

2. Slide your foot around inside your shoe in a futile attempt to relieve the suffering, and look stupid.


Subclass of sneaky

Post 6

Miss Archy

My first grade teacher didn't seem to mind scratching her foot while everyone was watching... I can still remember her sitting in the chair reading stories to us little six-year-olds whilst furiously scratching her foot with a ruler or pencil. Thankfully, she always left the shoes on.


Subclass of sneaky

Post 7

PointyTwist

Rulers and pencils reminded me of another one - casts on broken body bits and trying to stick stuff in to get to that itchy bit halfway down the cast. Never actually broken anything myself so I don't know, but I'm assured it's bloody frustrating.


The very worst of all itching

Post 8

AgProv2

This is going to sound foul and disgusting. Bear with it, it's for a reason.

The worst itching of all happened to me when I picked up a cargo of intestinal worms (threadworms)

Now I didn't know what was going on, but for a fortnight or so until I twigged, the most excrucuatingly intense itching set up between my buttocks and right down into the sphincter region. ESPECIALLLY around the anus.

It would always set in at the same time of day: between 6:00pm and going to bed. And in THAT part of the body you cannot scratch in public, so I stayed in at night. (Even walking flared it up; your gait soon becomes a buttock-clenched mince a la Larry Grayson. This doesn't do in public either, people taok about it...)

The sensation is a truly fiery, raw, excruciating deep-down itch.

Seriously hot baths helped, along with a thorough scrub of the affected area, but within fifteen minutes to half an hour, the itch and the urge to scrub were back. As it involved THAT part of the body, vigourous scrubbing using a tightly-wadded pad of toilet roll helped. It sounds daft, but I didn't look at what I was scrubbing away: just threw the wadded bog roll down the bog and flushed. If I'd looked sooner and acted on the vague feeling that in among all the itching, something was wriggling around down there, I'd have sorted the problem out so much sooner.

I mean, you're an adult male, you've got a problem in the toilet area that suggests your personal hygeine might not as good as it could be, who do you ask, without getting a flood of excruciating embarrassment that's worse than the problem?

About a fortnight into the Big Itch, I actually looked at what I'd lifted off on the toilet paper.

There they were, little white things, three or four millimetres long and THEY WERE STILL MOVING!

Totally disgusting and squalid. I gave up and went to the doctor.

Diagnosis: threadworm. Symptom: excruciating itch caused by their wriggling out at night to lay eggs in between the buttocks, hooping some would be caught up on fingers when scratching happens, and returned via mouth to kick-start the Next Generation. The painful agonising itch is a deliberate survival technique.

Cure: vermicidal medicine of the Pripsen brand. IMPECCABLE personal hygeine: keep fingernails short, bath daily, scrub hands after using toilet, boil-wash all underwear and bedding (I threw out all the possibly afflicted underpants and replaced from new), repeat scrip in a month to make sure.

Oh, and a lecture from my doctor about why the hell men try to cop out from going to see a GP unless it's immediately life-threatening, or they're carried in on a stretcher. Embarrassment is not an excuse, she said.

I have now been passenger-free for twenty years...







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