Is there anything worse than an itch?

Perhaps you have come across a situation where your leg or arm is broken and a plaster cast on it, and you feel the itch somewhere under the plaster cast. You remember how awful it is - itching in a place you can not reach. Even where you can scratch, the itch is devilishly unpleasant, if it does not pass. Ask anyone who in the forest stumbled upon the sum of this or that variety. No matter how you itch, you will not get rid of the itch - in fact by this you only strengthen it. In some ways, persistent itching may be worse than severe pain, which a person can eventually relieve with anesthetics.

If you spent the night in a hotel room that was not too clean and woke up in the morning with an urgent need to scratch, you must have been bitten by an insect . Whoever the disgusting little creature is - a mosquito, a louse, a bug, - you will have a diabolical itch. The more you comb, the worse. If you spend the night in a tent, itching can also be a consequence of contact dermatitis from sumac . You can distinguish a bite from dermatitis by carefully looking at your skin. If you have not combed everything too much, the bites will be limited, individual points, while the dermatitis network covers large body surfaces that have been in contact with the irritant. If it was, for example, poison ivy, the rash might be on the arm or leg that the plant touched; A new detergent will damage your skin on your chest if you washed your shirt; Perfumes and cosmetics will also cause dermatitis in those places where they were applied to the skin.

A continuous itch all over the body, with visible or not wounds ("urticaria"!), Is usually caused by an allergic reaction to something -food or pills (antibiotics are frequent culprits here), insect bites or anything that has been in contact with your skin .

Some childhood diseases cause a rash with itching. If your child wakes up one morning sick, with a low fever and combs an obvious rash, he may have a disease to choose from - chicken pox to measles . Each such infectious childhood disease gives a characteristic picture. For example, with chickenpox, which is caused by a virus, small watery blisters appear, usually on the trunk. They eventually break through, and in their place a crust is formed. Measles , also caused by the virus, gives a red rash on the head and body. Shingles (the reactivation of the dormant varicella zoster virus) is often initially manifested by local itching, tingling or pain for several days until a typical rash appears.

The rash, which you must know today, is associated with Lyme disease (named for a place in Connecticut, where it was first diagnosed). It is caused by the bite of a special mite , most common in the northeastern United States. The rash is initially circular in appearance, then spreads rapidly. You can have several distinct areas with a rash in different parts of the body. In addition to itching and discomfort, Lyme disease gives many symptoms, depending on the affected organs. The most frequent, however, are the temperature and painful, swollen joints. It is also possible to block the heart, the conduction system of the heart is damaged, so that the heartbeat slows down so much that a person can lose consciousness. The diagnosis of Lyme disease is confirmed by a blood test. Treatment is simple: an appropriate antibiotic, usually tetracycline.

Therefore, the first thing to do when you have itching is to look at the skin and try to remember what you touched and what touched you. Look for bites, a rash and even hanging ticks, remember your past allergies and do not forget about the new medicines that you began to take. In most cases, the cause of the itch will be obvious. Remember, however, that not every rash itches. For example, a rash due to secondary syphilis rarely causes itching, and one of the most troubling skin lesions, psoriasis, may itch, or may not.

But what about the itch that appears suddenly without any obvious cause and is not accompanied by a rash or traces of bites?

Here are the possible reasons.

If you have itch everywhere and your eyes and / or skin have a yellowish hue, you have jaundice , and the cause lies in the liver or near it. When the ducts leading from the liver into the intestine are blocked or swollen, bile flows into the bloodstream instead of the ducts and causes severe itching. This is usually observed with chronic liver disease or pancreatic cancer.

If you have ubiquitous itching, look for enlarged lymph glands above the clavicle, under the arms, in the groin and around the elbow joints. If you find, you can have a malignant disease of white blood cells ( leukemia ). A similar disease of red blood cells ( polycythemia ) is not so serious, does not cause an increase in glands, but often causes itching. In any case, the sooner the treatment starts, the better, so let your doctor know that you have itching, even (and especially) when nothing is visible.

Kidney disease , especially in later stages, is often accompanied by a general itch. Toxic substances that would have to be excreted by the kidneys, linger, circulate in the blood and cause itching. Therefore, if you have had kidney disorders and you notice that your hands, legs and eyes are swollen, the itch has a kidney origin.

If you are a woman with diabetes and you suddenly have itching in the vagina - you lose a lot of sugar in the urine. This makes your vagina the preferred place for fungal infections . Regardless of the presence of diabetes, vaginal itching can also be the result of a sexually transmitted disease , such as chlamydia , or the result of a yeast infection due to antibiotics that the woman recently received. However, any organism that irritates the vagina will cause itching.

Itching in the anus is a common, harassing and unpleasant symptom. The reason is most likely related to the skin of the area or to internal hemorrhoids . In the latter case, you will also notice a little blood on the toilet paper and find a small lump in the rectum.

A word of caution: never assume that rectal bleeding is necessarily a consequence of hemorrhoids, even if you do have it. Blood on toilet paper can arise from a tumor or polyp higher up the intestine.

Dry skin, which itches, is very often seen in people with a decreased thyroid function . In this case, there are other symptoms: you may have constipation, you feel lethargic, weak and cold, when others say it is quite warm. But if you are over 70, itching can be just a consequence of loss of moisture by the skin .

It takes great skill and knowledge to distinguish one type of skin lesion from another - simple brown keratosis or a benign birthmark from a malignant tumor , a rash of one infectious disease from another, a viral sore from a syphilis ulcer . This art and knowledge require many years of training and specialization. Therefore, when you contact a therapist with a skin itch, he will probably send you to a dermatologist for a special examination. But even then, a biopsy is often necessary to confirm the diagnosis. Therefore, if you have any rash or itching, contact your dermatologist, unless the cause is obvious. Unravel the problem - and try not to itch.

Symptom: itching