Reference; https://mbp-japan.com/jijico/articles/32276/
Modified and translated by CFJA
How can we stop the itch?
Itch is felt at the itch point on the skin. Pain is felt at the pain point. The pain point is located very close to the itch point. Therefore, rubbing the surface of the skin too hard from itchy skin is likely to cause pain. Since the signal of the pain is transmitted faster than the signal of the itch, scratching the skin continuously will cause the signal of the pain to reach the brain faster than the signal of the itch. Consequently, the itchiness stops as it becomes harder to detect. The alternative method needs to be considered as scratching the skin continuously to reduce itchiness that will damage the skin. The most common methods are locally cooling or distraction. Although cooling is effective, it can lower the immune system. Especially for someone with the exhaustion of internal organs, it can aggravate the itchiness. Hitting can help in terms of stimulating the pain points and this can lead to distraction. It is recommended to lightly hit/tap the area rhythmically, rather than hitting it as hard as possible, to reduce the itchiness. It is more effective to randomly tap different areas and even more effective to randomly tap non-itchy areas as well.
Constipation is common in infants and young children with itchy skin. Treating constipation often resolves itchy skin.
Many infants with eczema, which is a condition that makes the skin itchy and red, have constipation. Generally, when breastfeeding, infants have 7-8 bowel movements per day. When formula milk is fed in combination with breastmilk, it decreases to 3-4 times per day, and when they are only fed with formula milk, they only have 1-2 times per day. Eczema is unlikely to occur during the first 6 months after birth due to maternal immunity. However, there is a solid number of cases where infants with 1-2 bowel movements a day or once every 2-3 days will often start to develop eczema along with itchy skin after 6 months from birth. Since many adults have a bowel movement once a day, many mothers tend to miss that their infant has constipation. As one of the reasons for an infant’s constipation, the low body temperature of the mother, which causes her milk to have a low temperature should be mentioned. In many cases, we see that merely raising the body temperature of both mother and child relieves constipation and reduces eczema and itchy skin.