Walking on My Skin Again and Again

Ross Hauser, Medico

In this article we are going to discuss i possible caption as to why you accept symptoms of formication, that is the sensation of creepy crawlies or bugs itch on your skin. The medical term formication comes from the Latin for ants and can be translated as a condition of "ants crawling on the skin." We are also going to discuss tactile hallucinations, a strange sensation where the skin feels things that are not at that place, such as a touch, or heat, or any sensation that one would "feel."

While formication and tactile hallucinations tin exist seen every bit symptoms of dementia or advancing mental affliction, vitamin deficiency, or a hormonal trouble in postal service-menopausal women, in this article I hope to present the example that in some people, these symptoms are role of a myriad of "neurological-blazon" disorders caused past cervical spine and neck instability. That is, in some people, these conditions can be caused past pressure or pinch of the posterior spinal cord acquired by increasing spinal tension created past a poor cervical curve or neck instability.

I don't think I have dementia, I think I had a bad cervical fusion.

The problem with these conditions of skin hallucination is that when someone tells their md about it, in many cases, that physician will expect into drug use, illegal or prescribed, or outset a mental illness assessment. Very few doctors will make a connection between a cervical spine injury or surgery causing these problems. The people who have been down this route of searching for answers are the people who volition typically reach out to us because none of the answers they are getting are answers. Some of the treatments they have had, including surgery, worsened their problems.

Before we move on. Many people have very successful neck surgeries. Getting a sensation of ants itch on your skin after neck surgery is rare, but it does happen. Here is an example story from emails nosotros receive:

Cervical fusion after whiplash and bugs crawling on my skin. One dr. thinks I have the onset of dementia.

I have had a cervical fusion. I "needed" this surgery because of a severe whiplash injury. I am nonetheless suffering from intense sharp neck pain. But information technology is a different sharp neck pain than the pain I had before cervical fusion. I judge the doctors stock-still ane pain and gave me some other. I am at present having issues with my bladder. I am also having retentivity and brain fog problems and my doctors actually think I am in the early stages of dementia. I told them that I do not call up my problem is early-phase dementia, I think I have a neck problem. I asked them if my arguing the indicate coherently, wouldn't that be proof enough my "neurological" problems are not "all in my head." They still remember it is a reject in my cognitive function caused by dementia. This is specially truthful when I mutter that I have a awareness of things crawling on my skin. They throw mental illness in in that location also and say I am depressed.

I am itching my head like crazy. I should probably not use the word crazy.

I suffer from many weather, my doctors are focusing on chronic ear and sinus infections. I have "everything." Hearing sensitivity, vision issues, choking awareness, dizziness, simply some amidst many bug. I am also having problems which my doctors are suggesting may be some type of early-onset Alzheimer'due south disease or dementia. I am way likewise immature for this blazon of diagnosis yet my doctors are ordering a lot of brain scans. I practise accept confusion, brain fog, trouble focusing but I exercise not think information technology is dementia. I am having these weird symptoms that my doctors keep wanting to explore for my "brain," problem. I have a sensation of "dissociative amnesia," like I do not belong in the current reality and I forget who I am. I likewise have these sensations like something is crawling on my skin or at that place is something crawling in my scalp. I am itching my caput like crazy. I should probably not use the discussion crazy.

Why would these people'due south doctors focus on the problem of dementia when they suffered from so many "not-dementia" blazon conditions?

Why would these people's doctors focus on the trouble of dementia when they suffered from and so many "non-dementia" type conditions? Typically a symptom of burning natural language is non considered a dementia-similar symptom, nor is ear fullness, sinus congestion, or various gastrointestinal distress problems. But the doctors are exploring dementia or neurological breakdown but the same. The reason is that to go whatsoever treatments some doctors volition require a psychiatric and neurological assessment to dominion out these disorders, it is the standard of care to test for dementia when these symptoms appear, peculiarly in patients in heart age or older.

If you suffer from many similar conditions, you probably know from first-hand experience that without a central identifiable cause to your problems, the doctors treat the symptoms, in this case, brain fog, concentration problems, and the main betoken of this commodity the crawling, creepy sensations brought on past tactile hallucinations with an agreement that these problems can be helped with the aforementioned general recommendations given to dementia patients.

"Without dementia"

Look at this recent study from doctors examining psychotic symptoms in older people without dementia. The key here is "without dementia." This paper was published in the journal Public Library of Science One. (1) If your doctors continue up on the inquiry they may take come across this study and like studies that advise that creepy itch sensation should be viewed equally the onset of a long journey towards dementia. For the many people, we run across here at our cervix center, we see it as the culmination of a long journey of cervical spine and neck instability.

Let'due south look at the summary learning points of this newspaper:

This is a 7-year follow-up study aiming to determine the incidence of psychotic symptoms and their evolution into clinical cognitive impairment. People over the age of sixty were recruited into this study and followed for 7 years to come across how far their cognitive skills declined.

The sensation of tactile hallucination is number 1

Eight percent of the people in this report had at least one psychotic symptom within the vii twelvemonth period of the study. The symptoms were:
- 4.5% had Visual/tactile hallucinations
- 3.0% had Persecutory delusions
- two.5% had Auditory hallucinations
A total of 57.8% of individuals with psychotic symptoms developed cognitive impairment after seven years. Visual/tactile hallucinations were the only psychotic symptom predictive of this impairment

But, when a patient starts "seeing things," or feels that something is crawling on their skin, y'all should await for developing cognitive harm.

Permit'due south be clear. People can have early-onset dementia and it can exist caused past many dissimilar issues. In this article nosotros present one possible alternative answer, that is cervical spine and cervix instability cause nervus compression and dysfunction which causes the shooting off of a lot of bad letters between the brain and the nervous system.

"Information technology is possible that many patients kickoff out with symptoms of formication and slowly progress to developing circumscribed delusions as a mode of explaining the cause of the stinging, biting, and crawling sensations."

This quotation comes from "Clinical Cases in Psychocutaneous Affliction." The chapter: Formication Without Delusions. (2)

Here we have medical professionals suggesting that people who suffer from formication, with nowhere else to plough, develop delusional tendencies and then tin can exist treated with appropriate medications. But what if these foreign symptoms were coming from a nerve short circuit in the neck and the patient was suffering these symptoms "without delusion."

So where are these hallucinations coming from? Disrupted brain function from a strong cervix?

If it is strictly a dementia trouble, and then they would come up from the problems created past dementia. Merely what if they were coming from something else? Let's take a moment to assess a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. (3) We are going to wait at the summary learning points and provide some explanatory notes:

Phantom skin sensation

The learning points from the study are in quotations. The paragraphs are explanatory notes nosotros added.

"One of the most common situation(s) in which touch does not correspond to physical stimulation is the faux tactile perception i.e., tactile hallucination, in which people may experience touch sensation in absence of whatever kind of external stimulus. Hallucinations have been reported in different neurological and psychiatric disorders: psychotic states, Parkinson's affliction, dementia, phantom limb (the awareness in foot hurting in a limb that had been amputated), and drug corruption. Yet, the virtually convincing evidence about the predictive nature of touch on comes from the illusory experience of tactile perception generated by an external stimulus delivered in a different sensory modality. (In other words, you see something and this causes you to "feel something." Y'all can expect at a picture of wintertime and suddenly feel cold. You can expect at a picture show of a beach and of a sudden experience hot.)

"A number of studies accept demonstrated that effectually thirty% of normal subjects study tactile sensations on their own manus when a fake (rubber) mitt is located very close/superimposed to one's ain subconscious hand." (If the rubber hand is stroked with a feather, the person would feel a "tickle sensation.")

In this study, the researchers advise that even a "normal," brain tin can misinterpret the signals that the optics (visual sensation) are sending it. Y'all would experience common cold looking at a winter picture considering your encephalon is predicting that something cold (even looking cold) SHOULD make you feel cold.

Why is a stiff neck that the very last clue that your problems of itch skin may come from cervical spinal instability?

When someone talks to our staff about their conditions and symptoms, they, similar the examples I demonstrated above, will tell the states that initially, when they started having these weird symptoms, there was a "chase to eliminate" what it could peradventure be. As you probably know from your own medical history, you lot are going down the path of "what it isn't."

Is it Magnesium deficiency?

For some, there were musculus spasms or the awareness that their muscles were undulating or making waves under their skin. Since this tin exist caused by a magnesium deficiency, magnesium supplementation was recommended. Every bit the symptoms connected, magnesium deficiency was ruled out.

Hormone supplementation?

Symptoms of itch skin have been linked to mail-menopause. It is idea that hormone replacement therapy may be the answer. Of grade, this would non benefit men or women who were not post-menopausal.

Neuropathy? Psychiatric examinations?

Equally these people got deeper and deeper into their testing and diagnosis, they were tested for more serious conditions related to symptoms of tactile hallucinations and creepy, crawling peel. This would include a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. When these tests came back negative there was little else to explore. And so every bit nosotros discussed higher up the patient, in some cases accepted the fact that they must exist delusional and psychiatric examinations were recommended.

My neck injure. I had an adjustment. Then everything changed.

To exist very, very clear, tactile hallucinations and formication are symptoms of neurological disorders and they are symptoms of possible psychiatric disorders. They are also symptoms and conditions of cervical spine and cervix instability.

This is a story nosotros hear very often and the main reason that someone winds upwardly at our cervix center. Everything has been tested for, fiddling aid or symptom alleviation was achieved, more medications, more tests, and no answers. And so i solar day someone facing all these problems mentioned to a health care provider, near every bit an reconsideration, that they had a very stiff and painful neck and if there was "something that could be done for that?"

In many cases, that person was sent off to physical therapy or most likely a chiropractor. Suddenly, everything changed for that person. Their story goes something like this:

I kept developing new symptoms, information technology seemed that every day something else popped up that I had not noticed before. More muscle cramping, tingling in my feet and arms, feet attacks, and racing heartbeat for some. I was even scheduled to have a cardiac evaluation. As with my other symptoms, my pare hallucinations were getting worse too. One 24-hour interval I was in my living room and information technology felt like I was in the shower. I twenty-four hour period my wearing apparel felt similar they were moving by themselves on my torso.

I accept ever had nagging neck pain. Because of all these other symptoms, this problem was put on the back burner, and really never gave much thought other than taking a pill or rubbing my cervix. As I look back I practise remember sometimes when I would rub my neck and I would lose runway of where I was or what I was doing. I thought that was only me responding to the modest amount of relief the massage was giving me. Because my neck hurting was flaring up and now I was developing more frequent headaches I went to a chiropractor.

I had my adjustment, my cervix felt better, and so I went dwelling. Every bit the twenty-four hour period and next day passed I noticed that my symptoms and weather condition were profoundly reduced. I started having a panic attack because I did not know what this meant. I went online and started seeing that cervix instability may be a cause of my problems and somehow this one adjustment was non only working on my neck hurting but on my symptoms. Slowly the symptoms came back simply I felt as if I had made a discovery, at that place was a connexion between my neck pain and the feeling of ants crawling on my pare.

I went back for more adjustments and I found the symptoms I suffered from lessened but they also came back. I started searching for a more than long-term solution and started to explore everything with cervical fusion surgery as the concluding resort if I could not find whatever other treatment.

In this case, a cervical fusion made the hallucinations become away

In 2022 a case study published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) instance reports (4) comes to us from doctors at the Division of Neurosurgery, Section of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge. The championship of this case history is "I am not delusional!" Sensory dysaesthesia secondary to degenerative cervical myelopathy.

In this example history, the doctors reported on "an unusual example of a patient presenting with prominent and atypical sensory symptoms. The patient repeatedly presented to blow and emergency complaining of her trunk resembling a wet gel-like substance that she attributed to the use of olive oil moisturizing cream. The patient was found to take myelopathic signs on examination and MRI consequent with astringent cervical myelopathy. She subsequently underwent a successful decompressive anterior cervical discectomy, as recommended by international guidelines. This case serves to remind health professionals of uncommon presentations of common disease and the importance of maintaining a broad initial differential diagnosis." In other words, do not dismiss psychological symptoms every bit being a psychological problem. It could be in the neck.

Many of y'all are aware of the umbrella term dysaesthesia. A recent paper in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (v) describes this term in this way: "Dysesthesia is a generic term for a cutaneous symptom–such as pruritus, burning, tingling, stinging, anesthesia, hypoesthesia, tickling, crawling, cold sensation, or even hurting–without a chief cutaneous condition in a well-defined location that is often acquired by nerve trauma, impingement, or irritation."

What are we seeing in this epitome? A possible answer? The messages to and from the brain are beingness delayed. Misinformation at present fills the void as messages move more slowly

In other articles on this website, I explore problems that many of the people we run across have. Symptoms include tactile allodynia or painful to the bear upon skin, skin sensations where 1 one-half of their body volition feel hot and i one-half of their body will feel cold, rashes, and problems of sweating. The sensation is felt as the nerve impulses go up the posterior columns of the spinal cord to the parts of the brain that sense stuff that is the somatosensory centers of the encephalon. But what happens if this messenger-data highway has a roadblock or traffic is beingness diverted from and many of the highway lanes are closed? The messages move more slowly, priority messages may be delayed.

In this image, we run into that this patient has cervical spine instability. This is allowing the rear or posterior spinal canal to hitting against the walls of the spinal canal. The pressure existence created by hypermobile, unstable cervical vertebrae was causing this patient'due south whole body to be in a land of distress. They had the sensation that their torso was buzzing or vibrating, their pare had different temperatures from one side to the other, and itching sensations consistent with the sensation that something was crawling on them. Our treatments to convalesce this patient's issues focused on removing the pressure level on the spinal cord by stabilizing the cervical vertebrae and restoring the natural curve of the cervical and thoracic spine with Prolotherapy injections. This is explained below.

Strange sensations in the skin

In the video beneath, Ross Hauser, Md, and Brian Hutcheson DC discuss the problems of chronic skin sensations that are mutual symptoms and findings in cases of cervical instability. These include symptoms like aberrant temperature regulation over half of their body or certain areas that are hot or common cold compared to the rest of the body. Issues of specific areas that are hypersensitive or numb compared to the rest of the body, and other odd pare sensations, including localized swelling, vibration, and severe itching, and sense of crawling skin that has non been resolved past other traditional treatments including dermatology, rheumatology, and neurology.

Before nosotros motility on. Many of the problems nosotros are describing here do respond very well to conservative and traditional treatments. Many times they volition succeed at a high rate and to the patient's satisfaction. These are not the people nosotros see at our center. We run across the people who are being symptom managed without bully results. Once again, we will focus on the trouble of cervical spine instability as the underlying cause for many of these problems and the symptoms of strange sensations in the skin.

Explanatory and learning points from this video are highlighted and detailed below.

For some, the missing diagnosis for skin sensation issues is the cervical spine

The clues of upper cervical instability tin be constitute in the symptoms of the pare. Hot skin, common cold skin, itching, formication, sensitivity to touch, skin rashes on the skin. This may be the missing diagnosis and why people do not get the care they demand.

What are we seeing in this prototype?

A Digital Motion X-Ray or DMX is a tool we use to aid understand a patient's neck instability and how we may be able to help the patients with our treatments. In the illustration below a patient who suffered from upper cervical instability demonstrated hypermobility of the C1-C2. This hypermobility tin can result in mutual symptoms of neck pain, headaches, dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, concentration difficulties, anxiety, skin flushes, hot skin, cold, skin, crawling skin, and sensitivity to pain.

The treatment of cervical spine instability at the Hauser Neck Eye – Research on cervical instability and Prolotherapy

In the higher up article, we suggest that many of the issues related to amidst other symptoms, crawling skin sensations tin can be treated by addressing cervical spine instability in the neck. There are many ways to treat this problem. Our preferred choice is regenerative medicine injections that begin with Prolotherapy.

Caring Medical has published dozens of papers on Prolotherapy injections as a treatment in hard to treat musculoskeletal disorders.Prolotherapy is an injection technique utilizing simple sugar or dextrose. Our enquiry documents our experience with our patients.

In 2015, our research team at Caring Medical published findings in theEuropean Journal of Preventive Medicineinvestigating the function of Prolotherapy in the reduction of pain and symptoms associated with increased cervical intervertebral motion, structural deformity, and irritation of nervus roots and every bit mentioned above, irritation of the spinal cord.

Xx-one study participants were selected from patients seen for the primary complaint of neck pain.Post-obit a series of Prolotherapy injections, patient-reported assessments were measured using questionnaire data, including range of motion (ROM), crunching, stiffness, pain level, numbness, and exercise power, betwixt ane and 39 months post-handling (average = 24 months).

90-five percent of patients reported thatProlotherapy met their expectations in regards to pain relief and functionality. Significant reductions in pain at residuum, during normal activity, and during exercise were reported.
Eighty-half-dozen percent of patients reported overall sustained improvement, while 33 percent reported complete functional recovery.
Xxx-one percent of patients reported consummate relief of all recorded symptoms. No agin events were reported.

We concluded that statistically meaning reductions in hurting and functionality, indicating the safety and viability ofProlotherapy for cervical spine instability. (5)

In 2014, we published a comprehensive review of the issues related to weakened damaged cervical neck ligaments inThe Open Orthopaedics Periodical. (6) Nosotros are honored that this inquiry has been used in at to the lowest degree half dozen other medical inquiry papers by dissimilar authors exploring our treatments and findings and cited, according to Google Scholar, in more than than 40 articles.

This is what we wrote in this newspaper: "To date, there is no consensus on the diagnosis of cervical spine instability or on traditional treatments that salve chronic neck instability issues like those mentioned above. In such cases, patients ofttimes seek out alternative treatments for hurting and symptom relief. Prolotherapy is one such handling that is intended for astute and chronic musculoskeletal injuries, including those causing chronic neck pain related to underlying joint instability and ligament laxity. While these symptom classifications should be obvious signs of a patient in distress, the cause of the bug are not so obvious. Further and unfortunately, there is often no correlation betwixt the hypermobility or subluxation of the vertebrae, clinical signs or symptoms, or neurological signs (such equally excessive sweating or disability to sweat and temperature dysregulation or other skin sensations mentioned in this article) or symptoms."

What nosotros demonstrated in this study is that the cervical cervix ligaments are the primary stabilizing structures of the cervical facet joints in the cervical spine and take been implicated every bit a major source of chronic cervix hurting and in the instance of many of the symptoms we mentioned to a higher place.

Summary and contact united states of america. Tin nosotros assistance you? How exercise I know if I'm a skilful candidate?

We hope yous found this commodity informative and it helped answer many of the questions you may have surrounding strange pare sensations. Only like yous, we want to make certain you are a skilful fit for our clinic prior to accepting your case. While our mission is to assist as many people with chronic pain as we can, sadly, we cannot accept all cases. We have a multi-step process and then our team can actually become to know you and your case to ensure that it sounds like y'all are a good fit for the unique testing and treatments that we offer hither.

Delight visit the Hauser Neck Eye Patient Candidate Class

References for this article:

1 Soares WB, Dos Santos EB, Bottino CM, Elkis H. Psychotic symptoms in older people without dementia from a Brazilian community-based sample: A seven years' follow-up. PloS one. 2022 Jun 16;12(6):e0178471. [Google Scholar]
2 Nguyen T.V., Wong J.W., Koo J. (2014) Formication Without Delusions. In: Clinical Cases in Psychocutaneous Affliction. Clinical Cases in Dermatology. Springer, London.
3 Mowforth OD, Davies BM, Kotter MR. "I am not delusional!" Sensory dysaesthesia secondary to degenerative cervical myelopathy. BMJ Case Reports CP. 2022 Apr 1;12(four):e229033. [Google Scholar]
4 Shumway NK, Cole East, Fernandez KH. Neurocutaneous disease: Neurocutaneous dysesthesias. Journal of the American University of Dermatology. 2022 February one;74(two):215-28. [Google Scholar]
5 Hauser RA, Steilen D, Sprague IS. Cervical Instability as a Cause of Barré-Liéou Syndrome and Definitive Handling with Prolotherapy: A Example Series. European Periodical of Preventive Medicine. 2015;iii(5):155-66. [Google Scholar]
six Steilen D, Hauser R, Woldin B, Sawyer S. Chronic neck pain: making the connection between capsular ligament laxity and cervical instability. The open up orthopaedics journal. 2014;8:326. [Google Scholar]

This commodity was updated Nov ten, 2021

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Source: https://www.caringmedical.com/prolotherapy-news/tactile-hallucinations/