dragonlady7

Oh God, the itching.
Itch itch itch. Ow ow ow.
You ever get that?
It always freaking happens to me. Any sunburn severe enough to peel. After two or three days, there's this horrible stinging itch that begins to sort of ping at the nerves. It's not an itching of the skin. It's an itching of the soul.
You can rub your hands over the skin there, you can tear at the skin with your fingernails, you can rub it with a rough terrycloth towel, you can roll around on the carpet, you can scrub it against the back of your chair or the couch upholstery, you can smack it with wet paper towels, you can tear your hair out and go running off naked in frantic agony into the night, and it doesn't stop.
It.
just.
doesn't.
STOP.

EVER.

It started last night. I was all good during the day. The heat of the burn had faded. I'd had Dave put aloe on it. (Of course it's my back.) I had Dave put aloe on it again last night. It started to ping a little bit with little itches. Uh-oh, I said. I think The Itching is about to start.
His family has this novel thing called Solarcaine. You spray it onto things and they go numb. Also it has a disinfectant so it helps things heal, kinda. I thought, that's a great concept. So I went and got it out, and had Dave spritz me with it.

IMMEDIATELY, the itching began, SEVERELY.
Craaaaap.
I could not help it. I had to itch it. It was the worst thing I've ever felt. So I itched. And itched. And itched.
"I," Dave said, faintly horrified as I writhed, "am going to bed." And he did. There was nothing he could do.

I itched and itched and itched, and finally thought maybe if I wash it off it'll help? So I got a wet paper towel and scrubbed and scrubbed and the towel came away with blood spots on it. OH BOY.

I spent the next few hours alternating rubbing my back with the paper towel and rubbing it with a dry terrycloth towel. Sometimes I could go several minutes without actively scrubbing at it, and it would be sort of endurable, just with the pressure of the weight of the towel keeping it distracted. But after a while the nerves would build a tolerance to the stimulation and I'd have to start over.

It kept me up until about 2:30. I got a lot of editing done on stuff I've been writing, but sadly couldn't work on the most interesting project because it required too long an attention span. Finally I was so tired I seemed not to feel anymore. So I went to bed and slept on my face.

A couple sharp little pings of itching woke me up around 5:30. I tried all kinds of things to try to stay asleep and not have to itch it, but finally it was so bad I had to, and of course once you've touched it it never, ever, ever stops.

So, here I am. Check it out. I'm awake early. So productive. Getting blood spots on the paper towel again, though I'd swear I didn't scratch in the night. (I know I couldn't have. No mortal could sleep through that.)
I have no fingernails: I bit them off into little nubbins two days ago when I first got the sunburn because I knew this would happen. So I haven't really injured myself...

I sort of wish I could peel the skin off and start over...

Alternately, I wish I could drink an entire bottle of vodka and go to sleep until it STOPS.

But I cannot remember how many days The Itching usually lasts. I am never in a condition to be able to measure time when it's going on...

Anyhow. If you see increasingly frantic and just plain weird posts on here, and increasingly hallucinatory and desperate story sections being posted on HASA---- that's why.

AUGGGGHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGHHHHHHH.