Scratching an itch

I scratch the way others play scales on the piano:  Start with your smallest finger, slightly curved, and press. Each finger follows in order. Curve and press. Curve and press. The only difference with scratching is that instead of using the pad of your finger to push down the key you are changing the angle and letting your nail dig into the flesh.

There is nothing more satisfying than scratching an itch. Any itch. Think about the Baloo back scratch from the Jungle Book or the dog’s kicking leg as you scratch her behind the ear. Think of the eye rolling, time stopping, never-before-felt-so-good, got to get that spot scratch. Everyone does it but scratching is a talent that I’ve been honing all of my life. Ever since I was little, my skin has been exceptionally dry. Abnormally dry. Atopic Dermatitis dry. Also known as eczema. Not to be confused with emphysema, eczema is a skin condition that causes skin irritation and incessant itching. Eczema is most prevalent in children under ten. I was quite young when I started itching all the time—younger than memory serves—most strongly in my legs and arms. All through elementary school I wore long pants. My family always seemed to think I wore pants instead of shorts because they made me more cowboy. Really, though, I wore pants because I didn't want the other kids to see my sores.

It is night. I just want to sleep. I can’t. My daughter June is awake, whimpering in her bed, restless as a nightingale—if nightingales are restless. Maybe she is a black bird or an owl. It doesn't matter. She is awake. I sit on the edge of her bed, imagining that my eyes are red and worn, as exhausted as my body feels. She kicks at the covers. Tosses over. Rolls. 

 “Just close your eyes and sleep,” I plead. Instead she pierces me with her gaze, kicks the covers, tosses, rolls. I trace her face with my finger: around her eyes, down her nose, across her mouth. Her agitation eases but does not cease. I get out some lotion and rub it on her legs. Her tiny hands jerk towards her knees. I move them away. “I’ll do it,” I say, and I begin scratching.

I was in first-grade computer lab when the student teacher noticed me scratching my legs through my jeans. "Oh, my brother has eczema, too," she said. Just like that the asteroid spelling game that I was losing because I was trying to play with one hand while I used the other hand to scratch became meaningless. I didn't know what eczema was, but I was sure I didn't have it. I looked around to make sure none of the other kids were paying attention and replied, "No, its just dry skin." I didn’t have a disease or a condition. I just had dry skin. Dry skin and that was all. Not a disease, just a fact of life.

I sit in the shower and crank the hot water. I stick one leg in, then the other. The water is scalding. It burns. It burns like an itch, but it is real and tangible and more unbearable than an itch. It burns, but it feels good. It burns so bad that I get a queasy feeling in my stomach, and my body starts shaking. I can’t leave my legs in for long, but every second counts. Every second makes the relief that much better. This sounds sick, I know, and it is, but when I’ve tried not to scratch all day long, this is one of the few things that brings relief. Burn it off, I think. Burn it off.

Scratching isn't the problem; scratching is the solution. It feels so good to sink my nails into my calf and scratch. Pressure is relieved. Hunger satisfied. Thirst quenched. My dad's solution to minor aches and pains was to cause pain somewhere else. Oh, you have a headache? Well does it still hurt if I pinch your earlobe? Scratching is the same. A distraction. When a person scratches, his or her brain releases serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that has mild pain blockers. So when a person scratches, the relief comes from the pain blockers going to work. The only problem is that a side affect of serotonin is itchiness. So by combating skin irritation with scratching, we are only playing a cyclical game. The problem, then, is not scratching but itching, and serotonin, because without serotonin scratching wouldn't feel good. I assume it's the serotonin that makes the hot water feel so good on my legs. I assume because I'm not a scientist, I have no conclusive evidence, but the water works. 

Lotion, oil, Vaseline, moisture, these are the recommended treatments for Atopic Dermatitis inflammation, and, or, itchiness. If the skin doesn’t dry, crack, and feel like a desert, then you won’t feel like scratching. When I was a boy my mom would rub Vaseline all over my legs. The Vaseline would leave a sticky coating that would grab the sheets, hairballs, and lint, unless I wore pajama pants to bed. When I did wear pajama pants to bed, my legs would stick to the fabric. The Vaseline also didn’t work. It didn’t relieve the itchiness. There was no relief. I still found myself scratching, with the Vaseline leaving a coat of gelatinous goop under my fingernails.

In most cases the symptoms of eczema fade as the child moves into adolescence. This isn’t true in my case. I was fifteen when my cousin declared to our entire family that he always knew where I slept whenever I slept over because he could hear my scratching in the night. Even now, at the age of 28, my skin is as dry as ever—“Dry as a desert,” my wife says—and my skin is easily irritated. The only difference between then and now is that my legs are no longer covered in sores. Rather than my symptoms fading, I attribute this to my own practice of scratching. Over the years I've perfected my technique and timing to best amplify the scratch. I've also learned restraint. As far as I know there is no cure for eczema. There is only one answer I know that eases the itchiness. Don’t scratch. Don’t feed the beast. 

But scratching feels so good. Nothing, not even scalding water, feels as good as a deep, precise scratch. Oftentimes, at night, my wife says to June, “Why don’t you let your dad scratch your back? He is the best scratcher,” and this worries me. It worries me that my daughter, barely even three, is already realizing that nothing beats a good scratch.