Reply to how to stop OCD head scratching

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "how to stop OCD head scratching"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]So I had this issue after a bout of lice in our household. I'm one of those people who feels itchy at the suggestion of bugs in the vicinity, so actually having lice and having to treat line and my kids lic just made me feel permanently itchy even after it was totally eradicated. I would absolutely scratch myself raw without an intervention. Here's what I did:

1) When you get the urge to scratch, gently rub the itchy spot in a circle instead. Believe it or not, there are actually studies indicating that rubbing relieves itching better than scratching. Use as little pressure as you can. Rubbing is still mildly abrasive, but because it is so much less likely to irritate the skin, it can short circuit the cycle of scratching and itching. I have trained myself to just run an itchy spot with 1-3 circles and then stop. It has greatly reduced how itchy I feel overall.

2) Find a scalp treatment you can use for daily scalp massages at home. Since we were dealing with lice, I used some essential oils believed to repel lice (tea tree and rosemary). For surgery recovery, you might want something more moisturizing or healing. But what I would do is put a few drops on my scalp after washing my hair and then gently massage it in with the tips of my fingers. Again, the gentle rubbing decreased itching, but in my case the slightly tingling effect of the tea tree also seemed to soothe the itch.

It took some time (a couple months) but I now finally am not compulsively scratching my head. When I feel the occasional itch, I use the rubbing technique and that's it, I don't sit around getting itchier and itchier with every scratch.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics