Ok, I hope people here understand more than anybody else.
After the birth of my first child I developed a chronic hive condition known as dermatographia. If you look it up you will most likely just see a bunch of people writing on their skin and enjoying it. But there are a good number of people who have it that are in hell, I am one of those. For weeks I woke up having scratched my skin raw wondering what in the heck had happened. I went to cocky doctors who said that they would give me 2 weeks of steroids and all would go back to normal, only to return weeks later WORSE OFF. Literally it kept me from sleeping and from enjoying anything. The itch is unlike any other itch ever. So finally I found antihistamines...and take lots of them, which after 3 1/2 years still seems to keep me quite drowsy. A doc finally listened to me, grabs a medical book, runs in and asks "is this what it looks like" and when I replied yes, he said you'll have to live with it, it could disappear tomorrow or 30 years from now, we know nothing about it and have no way to treat except antihistamines. Well, as it progresses I become immune to all of the antihistamines and get progressively worse. What I have come to find out is I'm not the only one who gets constant recurrent bouts of nausea/gut issues/forgetfulness (to the point that I can't remember that I just spoke with somebody on the phone for an hour and I call them back)...ok, now I'm gonna cry.
Ok, but here is what bothers me the most. It's hard to live with itching and even just pain from anything (including water) touching my skin. But the worst part is, people will call me and claim that they have a rash (i mean red skin is a rash right? and of course, it only lasted an hour or whatever). So they will either blame me for giving them a rash and avoid me or they will say I got rid of it by using oatmeal or something (they think I haven't tried it all, I can be cured by something like oatmeal...OMG). It's all in their head...it's not contagious. And then people say, OMG, you scratched your neck (and of course, I didn't, it just touched my shirt and swelled up). And every time my husband gets bit by a mosquito or something, he thinks that I do have something catchable even after all of these years. And hearing people tell me to stop taking the meds so I don't hurt my liver and because my body is only itching because I haven't become "addicted." Other people tell me just to stop itching, i won't break out like that. It's BS. People think it's all in my head or that it's an addiction or just a ploy for attention. Nobody, not even my husband understand. sometimes, and this is gonna sound stupid, but sometimes the itching is so bad that I don't know if I can go on any more. I just wish somebody understood. So, anyways, I keep looking for help to find the reason behind it, but 95% of cases are ideopathic, they can't find why it happens and they can't stop it. It'll leave one day as mysteriously as it came. I've got 3 1/2 years down and I hope every day that I wake and feel better. Oh, and what irks me is research on the internet says that 5% of the populations has/have had this condition...but here's the kick, most of them only have it for a day-week (and it's usually because of an illness like strep throat or an infection of sorts) where the body just attacked itself to get better. Most of those 5% don't even know they had it and it's gone... I wish I was one of those guys!
Just to explain how this works, if anything touches me, that spot breaks out in hives that will wheal together. Some cool instances of this happening is at first my husband had his hand on my leg (and I had jeans on, his hand was ABOVE the jeans) while we were watching a movie, an hour later I got up and got ready for bed to find a perfect, I am talking perfect, handprint. I should have taken pictures and used the pics to bribe him...don't piss me off or I'll tell people you beat me (nah, I'm just kidding, I wouldn't do that). I have been avoiding public eyebrow waxing, expecting the worst, I got it done a few months ago...my worst fears were even worse than I expected. I swelled up immediately so bad that I looked like a red-faced racoon. It lasted for literally hours and burned so bad. I drove straight home after that (which was 2 hours away and I had not finished in town yet). Of course, if I am full of antihistamines I can have a bit of a laugh I suppose. I had an allergy test done (which is just crazy with this condition) and even though it itched so bad and I was literally just one huge welt I did find it amusing when a nurse walked in to ask the other nurse a question. She literally almost fainted. She stuttered and stammered and made some wierd comments and then walked up to me and said "omg, you are the most 'reactive' person that I have ever seen, you're allergic to everything, omg" and she walked out the door stunned. It was funny to see her face (despite how bad it felt on my skin)...and of course I'm not really allergic to everything, allergy tests lie when everything makes you get hives. Ok, I'm done with my rant now. If you want to see another person who has this condition (but the non-itchy version) please look up "ariana page russell" She has this, but does not suffer at all, which is misleading to the public of course, but still looks pretty cool. If I didn't itch, I would also draw on myself! LOL!