Long ago I learned how to scratch my backbone with the raised wood trim of an interior doorway. I had to get out of bed last night just to do this so I could go to sleep.
Huh. I’ve had an Intermittently Itchy Spot in that location on my back since, I don’t know, at least since I was in my teens, I think.
However, I’ve usually got at least one Itchy Spot someplace; and the place may be elsewhere on my back, or somewhere on my arms or head, or occasionally on legs or feet; so it’s probably something else. Though I suppose I could have both this and some other Cause of Itchy Spots.
The triangle of the bottom of the hairline on the back of my neck in a sort of triangle shape covering the nape of my neck has that sort of post-sunburn ticklyouchy sort of puffy but not puffy feel - new as a result of chemo. Stripe of about 4 inches wide by about 9 inches long sort of hitting the lower part of my right shoulder blade in a sort of slight diagonal s woosh … oval patch on my left thigh about the size of a flattened football is pretty much all numb [is great for IM shots =) ] and both my feet/legs - the bottoms of my feet were already moderately numb/tingly from the neuropathy from chondrocalcinosis there, but chemo made it sort of expand, so for a while it felt like I was wearing the old style ridged ski boots, with the soles of my feet being gnarly, like I was walking on those mats of round river rocks.
You know how old ladies are always pulling on shawls and little cardigans that just cover the area on the back of their neck and shoulders? Yeah, that triangle from shoulders to the point between the bottom of my shoulder blades gets so cold now. I’m almost always in a mock turtle neck with long sleeves. And the rest of me might feel hot, but that spot is always cold. This includes if I touch the skin with my fingers; it is empirically cold to the touch.
The level of comfort in drawing something fuzzy and warm around my shoulders is right up there with sliding into a hot tub.
I keep a pair of regular scissors around to scratch the spots I can’t reach. Backscratchers don’t do it for me, they’re too blunt.
Yes, I’m careful, no I don’t use the edges. I use the tip, which is rounded-ish and non-stabby but still scratchier than all the backscratchers I’ve seen.
Have I mentioned that all the commercial backscratchers I’ve seen are too blunt?
I’ve also (somewhere) got a piece of kinkware called a “vampire glove”, which is basically a glove that is covered with fish aggregate. That only takes a light touch to do a proper job, but there’s no one around to use it.
Yup! Hello zombies, and I too have notalgia parasthetica, it’s a C7 pinched/entrapped nerve thing. I have cervical radiculopathy and it’s just another one of those EFFING joys that comes with it. I honestly thought I was losing my mind when that itch started. I was rubbing up on walls, nearly took a chunk out of myself with a back scratcher, and got very creative with the application of hydrocortisone cream.