Okay, dermatographism post

WARNING: pics in this post are not the easiest to look at. I have them all located at the bottom of this, but just to forewarn you, they may or may not make your stomach turn.

I think I've kinda mentioned this at some point, in detail, but it was with another post, blah blah blah. Okay. Here's the short of it.

Back in 2007, I woke up one morning to comb my hair and shortly after combing and I had this crazy ass itching sensation all over my scalp. I wasn't sure what the problem was, or what was causing it, but it was wretched.

I had just recently dyed my hair a new color, but I didn't think that had anything to do with it. Now, I'm noticing that whenever I scratch my arm or anything rubs up against my arm, it leaves me with hives, an intense red color and an intense itch. If I scratched my arm more, the worse it got. So, I would have to wait about 30 minutes for it all to settle down and stop.

It gets worse.

I fall asleep on the couch with my covers and all that bundled up around me. Just from the simple pressure of my body against the wrinkles of my covers alone, caused my skin to whelp up and itch.

It had gotten to the point where I needed to figure out what was happening to me and why it was happening all of a sudden.

I typed in my symptoms and things like that and I came across a forum that mentioned what I was experiencing to the T. I self diagnosed myself at this point with dermatagraphism (my spelling is always off on the work and I don't feel like correcting right now even if it needs to be corrected). The literal meaning of the word is "to write on the skin."

And the literal meaning is just what it is. I could take the tip of an ink pen or my credit card, anything hard basically with a tip and run it along my arm. Wait a few seconds and the line appears along with the intense itching and hives just along that line. Come back 3o minutes or so later and it disappears.

It turns out that there is no known cause for this. It is considered a skin allergy. An allergy to what, no one knows. The condition could last as long as a few weeks to a lifetime. Right now, I still have it.

I went to a derm. who I told that I had this and she basically just prescribed me some Allegra. I believe an 60 or 80mg daily dose. This worked, however it only worked for 24 hours. As soon as it began to wear off the intense itching came again and I had to remember to take it or else I'd be totally uncomfortable until I was able to.

Once my prescription got refilled once again, I couldn't do it anymore. It was 45 dollars for a 30day supply, and that's expensive.

So, I asked my sister who is a nurse practitioner what I could use that would be cheaper and she told me claritin or a generic for claritin. I went with the generic for claritin, loratadine. Initially it wasn't doing much, but I figured at 10mg a dose, it wasn't going to. So yes, I take more than what is recommended on the bottle, sue me. In order for me to keep my sanity, I MUST take at least 3omg of this every few days or so, otherwise I'd be driven completely mad. When it wears off, it is more subtle than the extreme itchies I got from the Allegra.

The downside to taking 3 or so every few days has now caused me some kind of rash I randomly get. It's not contagious, doesn't spread (sticks to one area) and it doesn't itch. I don't know what the hell it is. My doc gave me a cortisone cream for it and it works for a while until a rash appears some where else. It's not visible unless I point it out and you can't really see it (same tone as my skin) unless I rubbed it and made it red. *shrug*

What I have is actually considered average. Chronic cases of this skin condition usually persists when a person is effected by extreme temps, hot/cold and parts of their body you wouldn't expect it to happen to (like their feet). Luckily, my situation hasn't been that bad and I hope it never gets that bad.

I'm not sure how or why my skin all of a sudden developed this random sensitivity to things. I've changed the soaps I use, the lotions, and all of this even lead to my decision of going natural with my hair and to stop relaxing. I pray for the day my dermatagraphism finally goes away, in the mean time, I just have to deal with it.

Here are some pics of what dermatographism (i found the correct spelling ha) can do to people, like myself, with it.

This is pretty typical. As you can see this is why it is called "skin writing." This is how my skin can get when my antihistamines are wearing off.


When I haven't taken any meds, it's spring/summer time and I am outside, it can be this bad and this red. Yes, it will get this red on me.

After looking at various pictures, I noticed, obviously, that it seemed like this was something that someone of european decent would only get. WRONG.

After being featured on CurlyNikki's blog and after mentioning it in the forums on NaturallyCurly's website, I found other african-american women who have this skin condition. Sort of a naive on my behalf of course, and I admit that 100%. This was something new to me and not many people know about, so you could imagine my thoughts, as I felt like this was something that was so rare that there wasn't another person in the world the same color as me with this condition.