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Life with Sensitive Skin

When everything feels like sandpaper

By Luke CapelPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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What is touch to you? What is feeling? When you pick an item up are you touching it or is it touching you? At the end of the day, your sensory receptors in your skin detect the certain pressures and surfaces and send impulses to your central nervous system. A wonderful mechanism for most it might appear to be, but for the super-sensitive ones of us who live in the world, what a pain it can be (literally).

In my life I have found physical comfort in many things, whether it is my bed, the clothes I wear on my back, or my super soft blanket that appears to go missing all the time... Nevertheless, in my everyday life there are physical obstacles that to the normal person aren't an issue. Most people buy clothes and shoes based on looks and fashion trends these days. For me, when I shop I have 3 medical steps before I even think about it, in this order:

1) Does it give me a rash within 10 seconds of putting it on my skin? My skin just rejects some materials when they touch my skin and it flares up. Labels being too large or having rugged edges, cause great irritation. Particularly sensitive areas are around my neck, chest and arms. This is the initial skin test. If it passes and I'm not looking like a tomato underneath, we progress to step 2.

2) Does it fit well enough? If it is too small and tight, it will restrict my skin and rub. If it is too loose, then I will sweat when it occasionally touches my skin then stick, causing more irritation. If it fits well and doesn't give me a rash, we move on to step 3.

3) Do I like the texture? This to some people might just look like me being picky, yet a jumper I owned felt weird around the sleeves and I had a rash and irritated skin for a few days after wearing it. I am not allergic to fabrics (as far as have been tested for), yet my skin still decides what I wear and what it decides to strawbrify me in.

Clothes are not the only object affected. If a plant decides it wants to hold my hand as I walk past it, 9 times out of 10... red scratch or mark. Then the other time, it's something that just makes me sneeze.

Other scenarios include but are not limited to: going to the toilet... I'm sure you can imagine the sensitive part there, but if not this might help: poor quality paper... feels like sandpaper... Soaps when washing hands are tricky. Anything that is quite scented or oily will normally cause my hands to turn red within seconds.

One key impact I have found affects me is physical contact. If I am trying to sleep and something touches my leg or arm like the duvet, sleep will not occur for at least 30 minutes until I have taken my mind off of it with something deep, like the meaning of life. If I get the feeling of the duvet on my neck... well sleep isn't happening tonight so try again tomorrow. My body feels things touching it, even after I have stopped thinking about it. If you are sitting down right now, you will not be mentally thinking about the feeling your clothes have on your body, or your trousers on your leg and even less so, the chair on your leg. I can feel all of those things, all of the time which makes me very restless.

I love to camp. Camping makes me feel free and enables me to explore the world by submerging myself in it. There is nothing more freeing for the mind than waking up with a cool breeze on your face, with birds singing away. Then to roll out of your sleeping bag to watch a beautiful sunrise with breakfast. My best experience to date was in Summer and I remember my nose being itchy as hell. I was asleep though and I felt my cheek being slightly irritated. It eventually woke me up and felt I my face. As it turns out, there was something on my face... A small beetle.

It had crawled onto my face and was walking all over me. I was so surprised by it that I slapped myself on the cheek, yet only mid swing did I realise what might follow... The black and green splat.

This was followed by 4 more sleepless hours of fidgeting when anything touched my skin, until a bit of light poked through the tent and I got up. Even now, years after it happened, whenever I camp I always check my face before I go to sleep and wake up for any moving creatures.

Life with sensitive skin is normal like others, but with a few differences: everything you feel is heightened and certain things are more difficult to do. But with the skin, some things are fun... some things are cool... and some things are beetles.

health
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About the Creator

Luke Capel

Just for fun! Love for sport and massages, with funny stories along the way.

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