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littlefrog
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Mar 18, 2008
Age: 41
Posts: 48
Location: Connecticut
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 Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject: does your skin ever just hurt |
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i thought this was just an allergy of some sort .. my very sensitive skin issues. i have always gotten into fights with bf's because my skin is so sensitive. i tell them they are hurting me when they rub/caress me and they yell at me that i'm a freak and they're barely touching me.
some days my skin just hurts and i can't get dressed. i usually have to take an advil or something. am i a freak? i've been to dermatologist, they can't find anything wrong with me.
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SilverProteus
The years, no doubt, have changed me.
Joined: Jul 21, 2007
Posts: 7154
Location: Fleet Street.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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My skin only hurts when it's dry, otherwise I wouldn't describe some sensory caused discomfort to be "pain".
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silentchaos
Toucan
Joined: Mar 08, 2008
Posts: 250
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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| It could be caused by something like hypo/hyperthyroidism, i think they can cause you to feel pain in random ways. |
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Lightning88
Skunk Enthusiast
Joined: Aug 05, 2006
Age: 19
Posts: 2923
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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I have some pretty bad skin problems with just my left elbow. For the last three years or so, whenever it's dry, it develops a rash. But last spring was really bad for it. It ended up turning black for three weeks! I've tried a million different creams as well as natural aloe vera, but nothing seems to help it. And ironically, I don't have a problem with my right elbow or anything else on my body. Just my left elbow.
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Grimfaire
Deinonychus
Joined: Aug 06, 2007
Age: 38
Posts: 345
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:24 pm Post subject: Re: does your skin ever just hurt |
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| littlefrog wrote: | i thought this was just an allergy of some sort .. my very sensitive skin issues. i have always gotten into fights with bf's because my skin is so sensitive. i tell them they are hurting me when they rub/caress me and they yell at me that i'm a freak and they're barely touching me.
some days my skin just hurts and i can't get dressed. i usually have to take an advil or something. am i a freak? i've been to dermatologist, they can't find anything wrong with me. |
I know exactly what you're talking about. It's not a skin "condition." There are no outward signs of anything being wrong. It's just a matter of the skin hurting and adding any pressure or contact just makes it worse. I've tried to explain it as imagine your entire body being in a vise that is too tight by far... then when contact is added.. it just makes the vise get tighter.
Mine stopped when I changed my diet this past xmas and no longer eat gluten. I've been putting up with it for decades (at least since age 12) and by stopping the gluten... it all went away.
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When in trouble or in doubt; run in circles scream and shout. |
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Cerumenator
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Mar 31, 2008
Posts: 56
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject: |
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Questions:
1. Does the Advil help?
2. Does anything help? (showers, sleep, different fabrics)
3. Are there ANY visible rashes or other discolorations?
4. Have you noticed any causative factors to this feeling? Periods of stress, changes in diet, etc? |
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Sora
Illogical, Irrational
Joined: Sep 16, 2006
Age: 20
Posts: 2411
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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Just my guess, from the sounds of it: It's sensory. Processing error.
Separately, it's called sensory processing disorder (SPD) I think.
I had/have this. It flared up sometime when early teenage years to the point where a mere brush of skin hurt like a hot burn. It's gotten better now,. Just weakened to how it was like before, I didn't have any treatment. No touches usually don't hurt any more. I just feel a strange prickling sensation when touched, but no pain.
I have no idea what to actively do against sensory issues. But I do consider this very worth looking into though. A neurologist is probably the right addressee in every country.
If this pain of yours is caused by a sensory processing disorder, a dermatologist won't ever figure it out. Because there's nothing odd with your skin, but with your brain.
You don't have to have any autism spectrum disorder - do you? - because processing disorders happen in otherwise perfectly non-disordered people sometimes too. |
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Bopkasen
Deinonychus
Joined: Jul 06, 2006
Posts: 399
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:55 pm Post subject: Re: does your skin ever just hurt |
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| littlefrog wrote: | i thought this was just an allergy of some sort .. my very sensitive skin issues. i have always gotten into fights with bf's because my skin is so sensitive. i tell them they are hurting me when they rub/caress me and they yell at me that i'm a freak and they're barely touching me.
some days my skin just hurts and i can't get dressed. i usually have to take an advil or something. am i a freak? i've been to dermatologist, they can't find anything wrong with me. |
My mom have that trouble. I just do it to my grandma instead. I know how to massage her neck. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 2982
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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I don't understand what this stuff is about it being "just sensory" and therefore "not pain", or even encouraging someone to brush off something that clearly is painful to them (or they wouldn't describe it as pain) as "just sensory" as if that makes it better or more accurate, as if there's something wrong with describing it as painful.
My skin burned my entire life, burned as in felt like I had a sunburn constantly, with the amount it did so changing a bit depending on circumstances, time of day, etc., but in general burning a lot. Also sometimes felt like ice at the same time as burning.
It's the exact kind of pain normally associated with things like central pain and shingles. One thing it is not is something that is "just sensory" and therefore "doesn't need to be treated like pain". The nature of various kinds of neuropathic pain is to burn on light touch (either immediately or somewhat delayed).
When I was 15, someone put me on Neurontin for seizures. A lot of my pain went away. My doctors did not know that Neurontin also treats nerve pain so they didn't bother paying much attention, acting like the pain was "just part of seizures".
When I was about... maybe 22ish, I spent about 3 months in bed because the pain had gotten so bad that I couldn't do much other than curl up and moan a lot of the time. A friend read about neuropathic and central pain and told me it sounded like what I was dealing with.
I went to the doctor and told her the Neurontin story without referencing Neurontin directly, and she told me she knew what kind of pain it was and which drug I meant and that she'd write a prescription.
The Neurontin made me revise my pain scale entirely. I'd been living with what I now would consider a 6 out of 10 as the least pain I ever had to deal with. I became able to do a lot more things again. It also made the seizures I'd just been putting up with get under better control, although not eliminated (it's technically meant to be used along with another drug, but I don't tolerate most of those drugs too well).
Later on I was switched to Lyrica, which has a similar mechanism of action but fewer side-effects. (Also was tried to Trileptal in combination with it, but got liver problems and had to quit.)
But in any case, pain is not something you don't take seriously and it's certainly not something you brush off as a "sensory processing disorder".
I know that for people who do have pain in addition to overload, it can be hard to tell the difference. So I'll also say this:
I used to be able to tell overload by how much pain I was in.
Once that pain was successfully treated (not eliminated but greatly reduced) I noticed that I could still get overloaded, there was just no pain. My understanding of things and ability to do things would still decrease, and I'd be uncomfortable, but pain would not be part of the situation.
There is a difference between pain and overload. They are not the same thing. They can combine into something worse than either of them alone. But they are not the same thing.
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"We may seem in the gutter from up there where you are but maybe you don't know we still see the same stars." -Donna Williams |
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cataspie
Sea Gull
Joined: Jan 11, 2008
Age: 30
Posts: 224
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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| I sometimes get a feeling of numbness when i touch my back its a very unbearable kind of numbness then it feels painfull.People tapping my shoulder is ok i've noticed people do that alot. |
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Sora
Illogical, Irrational
Joined: Sep 16, 2006
Age: 20
Posts: 2411
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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| anbuend wrote: | | I don't understand what this stuff is about it being "just sensory" and therefore "not pain", or even encouraging someone to brush off something that clearly is painful to them (or they wouldn't describe it as pain) as "just sensory" as if that makes it better or more accurate, as if there's something wrong with describing it as painful. |
Who said it's 'just sensory'? Or not to take it seriously?
I cannot understand how sensory processing disorders can be understood as a trivial matter. We either seem to disagree on the results or understand this term and refer to this term differently. Or both.
If your were indeed referring to me ('just sensory' and 'not to take it seriously'), please don't make it sound like I said what I did not say, thank you. |
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littlefrog
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Mar 18, 2008
Age: 41
Posts: 48
Location: Connecticut
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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i do think it hurts more when i'm stressed out in general (like today). it does feel a like a sunburn, that's a good description, cool hands (no rubbing) feel good on it. advil does work. there is no visible rash or anything like that.
clothes in general bother me most days, i can only wear soft cotton and i tend to sweat very easily. i don't eat gluten for other reasons, i have a pretty bad digestive system and stress makes me lose weight rapidly .. it's gotten worse over the past year or so.
i am always being told i am the most physically sensitive person people have ever met. in good and bad ways.
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today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground |
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Grey_Kameleon
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Feb 21, 2008
Age: 20
Posts: 188
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject: Re: does your skin ever just hurt |
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| Grimfaire wrote: | | I know exactly what you're talking about. It's not a skin "condition." There are no outward signs of anything being wrong. |
Is that an autism thing? I've always wonder what causes that. The type of pain is like a burn. |
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St-Jimmy1669
Butterfly
Joined: Mar 29, 2008
Age: 16
Posts: 9
Location: Lincolnshire, England
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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| this is possibly irrelevant, but my skin gets painful to the touch in the days before I develop a migraine. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 2982
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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I was referring to the person who basically said (edited now that I found the quote), "I wouldn't refer to some sensory caused discomfort as pain."
As far as sensory processing disorder goes, I probably have all the traits that would be considered to associate with it, but I think, like sensory integration dysfunction (which is my actual diagnosis), it's a label that barks up the wrong tree as to what is actually happening. It can be a shorthand for certain traits (just as CAPD and VPD/Irlen syndrome/whatever are used that way), but I don't think it's a shorthand that accurately represents what is happening, any more than those other labels I just mentioned are.
By that, I mean, I experience:
* Emotional aversions to various stimuli (a severe "yuck" reaction)
* Sensory aversions to various stimuli (like things being too loud, bright, etc)
* Extreme sensitivity in general
* Shutdowns in sensory perceptions of various sorts
* Seeming fragmentation of perception (at a conscious-processing level)
* Difficulty taking in a lot of new things to perceive at once
* Difficulty understanding consciously more than what most people would consider one thing at once
* Difficulty with attaching symbolic thoughts to perceived sensations
Probably in a pretty extreme way.
However, I don't think those are a result of a thing called "sensory processing disorder," I don't think brains work the way "sensory processing disorder" literature describes them as working, and I don't think "sensory processing disorder" is a useful medical term except inasfar as it can get a person accommodations.
(By which I mean, it is useful if all you want is a description of your experiences, and it is useful if it means you can get assistance you need for having those experiences. But it is not useful in a truly explanatory sense, it doesn't really say that one thing causes all these things, and the thing it seems to point to is quite possibly the wrong thing.)
And I think, when confronted with pain, using the label "sensory processing disorder" is extremely dangerous, because there are pain conditions that are or can be associated with sensitivity or difficulty filtering or shutting off pain responses in a typical way (among them, assorted kinds of neuropathic pain, central pain which is one of those kinds, fibromyalgia, migraine, etc.) These are recognized things and they should be looked for when someone talks about pain, because there are specific effective treatments for them that are not treatments for "sensory processing disorder".
That's why my reaction is so strong. Not because the experiences associated with "sensory processing disorder" ought to be trivialized, but because jumping to that conclusion first can lead to a person going without pain treatment for years. And pain is dangerous to the human body over the long term, it introduces unnecessary stress and interferes with various processes that keep the body healthy. I dealt with considering my pain part of "sensory integration dysfunction" for a long time and that's one reason I never treated it, I thought it was an inevitable consequence of my sensory system. Yes, the consequences of a non-standard perceptual system can be severe and unpleasant, but they are not the same as the consequences of a pain condition that is treatable without altering that perceptual system.
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