I’m not talking about a casual brushing something off your skin, or pulling off a bit a dried skin. I mean when the urge to scratch goes on and on, to the point you are actually damaging your skin, sometimes drawing blood … and you still feel that scratching actually feels BETTER than not tearing at an actual wound? It seems like an utterly stupid thing for your nervous system to drive you to do.
A couple articles:
A few years later, in 2014, Chen and his colleagues realized that serotonin (the mood-regulating “happiness hormone”) plays a big role in perpetuating the itch-scratch cycle. They found that when mice scratch an itch, their brains release a surge of serotonin, resulting in a moment of pure bliss — but then, tragically, the hormone activates the same receptors that transmitted the itch signal in the first place, restarting the process.
These results jibed with a PLOS One brain-imaging study from the previous year, which showed that scratching activates the brain regions involved in the reward circuit, a neural network that floods the body with euphoria-inducing chemicals in response to pleasurable activities (like sex) and substances (like drugs). It’s the same system that underlies addiction, which isn’t surprising if you’ve ever lost an hour digging into full-body mosquito bites with rapturous abandon.
Why Scratching an Itch Feels So Good
https://www.discovermagazine.com/why-scratching-an-itch-feels-so-good-46439
And all that scratching doesn’t even stop the itching! (Bug bites be damned to hell!)
However, a little dab of hydrocortisone cream (available at any pharmacy) works marvels!