Chronic itch more than a skin problem
People with a chronic itchy skin condition often experience itchy symptoms in response to heat, electricity or other normally painful stimulation. The problem is more than skin deep.
People with a chronic itchy skin condition often experience itchy symptoms in response to heat, electricity or other normally painful stimulation. The problem is more than skin deep.
Chronic itch changes the processing of sensory information in the spinal cord such that normally non-itching stimuli become itching; the altered processing even changes painful sensations which normally suppress the itch into the sensation of itch. This finding is of crucial importance to people with atopic dermatitis. This condition causes red and itchy spots on the skin. The condition is most common in childhood, affecting 10 percent to 15 percent of children and adolescents in Western countries.
Itching is often caused by a compound called histamine that is released by the immune system during an allergic reaction, but antihistamine medications, which block histamine, are often ineffective in reducing itch caused by atopic dermatitis.
Researchers from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, set out to compare the responses of people with atopic dermatitis with people with psoriasis- another chronic skin condition - and healthy people. The study included 25 people with atopic dermatitis, 9 with psoriasis and a 'control' group of 20 people with healthy skin. Participants were exposed to several types of normally painful stimulation, including pinpricks, mild electric shocks, heat and injection of an acidic solution. As expected, the control group and people with psoriasis experienced pain when exposed to the stimuli, the researchers report. In contrast, people with atopic dermatitis experienced itching instead of pain.
The researchers are now working on learning more about how sensory processing goes awry in people with atopic dermatitis. The eventual goal is to find drugs that normalize the central misinterpretation that causes people with atopic dermatitis to feel an itchy sensation in response to pain.
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