Just wondering if anyone else experiences this. Things like my hair laying on the side of my head or bracelets cause a medium-intense aching pain on my head or arm. Some days, I’ll have a pretty bad headache just from wearing a shirt, and I’ll occasionally just have to take it off. It sounds like a milder form of allodynia, maybe? I know touch sensitivity is definitely a thing, but I’ve never known anyone who experiences it quite this way. It definitely scales with how well rested I am, too.
Anywho, I’ve tried searching for this before, but it only somehow just now occurred to me to ask my fellow neuro-spicies if this is common. Thanks!
I’ve only ever found two real studies on topic of tactile processing issues. reading the descriptions of tactile defensiveness made me feel less crazy.
The neurological process of light touch and movement being miss communicated to include a fight or flight response. The stress to muscles and joints that goes with constantly supressing a low level fight or flight response.
I’ve found it helpful when explaining to people hoe it is for me at least. To ask them to describe their physical response to something like a jump scare, someone startles you from behind kinda thing. then i ask if lightly moving their own hand over their arm causes the same feeling at like 1/3 the intensisty. Sure they usually say something along “thats not real”. But damnit i was at least able to explain the experiance.
these links shouldnt have paywalls. i can poke around for new links if they do.
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/37/27/6475
https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1186%2F2040-2392-3-6
That’s a very interesting way to think about it, and as I think about an actual intense physical response like that, this kinda feels like a constant, low level version of that. Thanks for the articles! I definitely want to go dive into those.