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!
I often wondered why regular itching is nice to scratch, but poison ivy is in a class by itself: it is absolutely delightful to scratch–it is an order of magnitude above regular itching in “scratching pleasure”
Nice cites!!
You can also get prescription strength from your doctor.
Also really hot water directed directly on the bite will shut off the itch for several hours. Make sure it isnt scalding hot, of course.
I have learned that applying heat to a mosquito bite - as hot as you can stand for as long as you can stand - will get rid of the itch permanently. I heard that the proteins in the toxins get denatured by the heat. No idea if that’s what really happens or not. I do know it works. My specific method is to boil some water and pour a bit into a small glass. Touch the glass to the bite, gently at first because it’s gonna be HOT. As the water cools, press it more and more firmly and hold it longer and longer. A total of 10 minutes has proven to be enough. I use water in a glass for thermal mass, there’s nothing magical about the water or the glass.
I have been pleasantly surprised that the Bug Bite Thing (yes that’s its name) actually works! It’s a little plastic device with a suction plunger that you put over the bite. As long as you do it quickly after being bitten it stops the itch! I always take it with me when I am outside in mosquito-prone areas.
Yes. Hot water is magnificent for scratching an itch. I learned this little life hack when I had bed bugs years ago.
Wasn’t there a SD article done on this like a hundred years ago?
I wish I’d known about the hot water trick when I was a kid.
I find that for casual itches (not insect bites), just rubbing the itch works better than scratching with fingernails. After reading this thread, it’s probably because it doesn’t do the whole serotonin thing.
Does the hot-water treatment work on poison ivy?