In the darkness the trees are full of starlight (henwy) wrote,
In the darkness the trees are full of starlight
henwy
  • Mood: annoyed

I feel like a picnic

Well, I just tried to go to sleep and failed. I'm once again experience that sort of weird twitchy sort of sensation on the skin. It's not a big deal if I'm concentrating on something but it makes sleeping sort of impossible. I did some googling and found that the whole bugs on the skin feeling actually has a name, formication. Definitely not something to typo or there could be a lot of embarrassing hijinx. Anyway, the effect they describe doesn't exactly fit what I'm feeling either. At worst, I'm getting a sort of mild tingling, that's orders of magnitude below even something like pins and needles. The wiki entry describes people ripping their skin off through scratching and I can't even imagine wanting to scratch this sensation. It's so mild that I don't even feel an urge to rub the affected skin. Still, it is enough to drive me bonkers when I'm trying to sleep. I have no clue what's causing it though none of the options are good. The top suspects are opiate intoxication (a possibility since I'm always popping pills) and diabetic neuropathy (also possible since while I've never been diagnosed with diabetes, being a fatass certainly makes it more likely).

The really annoying part is I'm not even sure that formication really describes what I'm feeling. It's just the first thing that popped to my mind when I first experienced it, and that might just be because of my history in drug abuse research. I've heard of heroin addicts talking about bugs crawling all over them during detox, and it's the only thing in my experience that even comes close. Those addicts seemed far more disturbed by it than I am though. It would bother them while awake and was apparently distracting enough to really complain about. As for me, it's only been a while trying to sleep thing. That means it's either something completely different or maybe I'm just suffering some early onset.

Anyway, there's nothing to do but wait until it passes. It always goes away after a bit. At least it has in the 3 or so times I've experienced it thus far.
Tags: formication, insomnia
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