What's the medical term for the sensation of insects crawling over your skin?

[Saracen]

Hi folks, I hope someone can point me in the right direction!

Dd is finally articulate enough to start telling me details about some things that have bothered her for years. I want to do a bit of digging and see whether this is likely to be related to her medication or her metabolic disease itself, whether it's a sign of some other problem and what I can do to fix it or at least to relieve symptoms.

She says she often feels as if insects were crawling all over her.

She also really craves being scratched quite firmly all over her back and sometimes elsewhere. When I ask her about the "itching" she says it is very deep down under the skin. Maybe it's the same as the crawling-insects sensation; I don't know. Scratching feels good but doesn't make the itch go away.

She doesn't have any sensory issues, quite the opposite in fact. She has a high pain threshhold and rarely complains of discomfort from insect stings, blisters, chafing clothes etc.

Any thoughts? Do you know what this sensation is called and what might be causing it? I'm thinking it is something to do with nerves sending the wrong signals to the brain... I don't have a very high opinion of dd's neurologist and we only see him once a year but I could ask for an appointment about this if it seems significant.

Cheers!

Pruritus is the medical term for itchiness, is that what you're thinking of?

I used to get that feeling when having an anxiety attack. Barbara Vine described it in one of her books as "electric flesh".

Formication. With a m.

An allergic reaction to something might be another cause. I had it in pregnancy like zzzz and stuff like piriton helped (don't know if you can give it to children). Might be worth trying different washing powders etc as that can cause similar problems.

I get it when my hormones are all over the place and usually hit it with antihistamines. I find a cool-ish bath helpful, too.

Now why is it that when some-one tells you NEVER to do something you just have to to do it even if you had no desire previously. I had a foreign MSc student once who in his final dissertation kept putting in the word "organismic" which made me chuckle every time I read it. He had a very unusual vocabulary but whenever I challenged him he invariably was correct that it was a proper word. Was so annoying!

LOL, thanks for all the help everyone! I shall type formication very carefully.

Apparently formication is often caused by neuropathy, and I know that neuropathy is the most noticeable effect of a too-high dose of the medication dd takes. Getting the dose right is really tricky. For years patients used to be prescribed the minimum dose which kept their seizures at bay. More recently it was discovered that over the long run, better intellectual outcomes were obtained with higher doses.

But how much higher? When we asked this question when dd was a baby, we were just told to use our own judgement! I think maybe we've gone over the top with it...

So yes, that's really helpful, cheers.