any of you suffer from allodynia?

18 years ago

In case you do have it, but just don't know the medical name, allodynia is when an area of skin on your body is extremely sensitive, for no apparent reason, meaning you aren't sick at the time and have not been injured in any way. It's a surface pain of extremely sensitive skin, not involving any deep tissue muscular pain, and there is no rash, discoloration or change in texture of the affected skin.

In the past I occasionally suffered from allodynia for a few days, where the skin on one side of my face would be extremely sensitive to touch, or my scalp would hurt even to gently brush my hair. My DD occasionally gets an area of skin on her upper arm that gets overly sensitive. But just after Halloween, I started experiencing allodynia on the skin of my left thigh, roughly the circumference of a baseball. Although it's not my entire thigh, it happens to be in the upper outer area where the buttocks meets the thigh. I've never been a touch sensitive person, so clothing seams or tags have never bothered me, but it's just downright cruel IMO, that the area where I have allodynia is right where I always have contact from the outer seam of my pants and the elastic leg of my underwear! I hoped this would disappear quickly, as any past episodes I had were limited to a few days. But it's now been almost 4 months and doesn't appear to be in any hurry to fade away. The area burns or stings exactly like a really bad sunburn that you don't want anything touching, except it never gets better. Over the counter pain meds like Tylenol etc. don't relieve it, but I don't think it's quite bad enough to get into perscription pain meds which can be highly addictive for something that may be long term.

I have been found to be completely healthy and don't suffer from any autoimmune disease, stress or depression, so there's no real clue for my doctor. She said the body sometimes comes up with weird symptoms that won't actually harm us, but their goal seems to be just to make us miserable, lol! They say misery loves company, anyone else dealing with this on a daily basis?

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Comments (5)

Happy_Go_Lucky_Gayle
18 years ago
pickyshopper,

Is this a condition that "fair skinned" people have?

Gayle
amicus
Original Author
18 years ago
No Gayle, it's not something just affecting fair skinned people. My doctor who is from Pakistan says she gets an episode about once every year or so of allodynia on one side of her face which is a common location. She said when it happens her skin is so sensitive that even a slight breeze blowing will hurt that side of her face. Also, this condition has nothing to do with normal sensitive skin that some people have, who can't use moisturizers or soap containing certain ingredients. It's a very localized burning sensation that only affects a patch of skin here or there, and usually disappears as quickly as it came.
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aprilflower
18 years ago
wow - I think you just diagnosed me. About a year or so ago I had this on my left thigh just under my buttock. It BURNED like I'd scraped it or gotten a sunburn there but there were no marks. Couldn't sit, could barely stand to have clothing on. I thought maybe it was shingles, but then again no blisters, rash, etc. Even my doctor was stumped. Lasted about a day or so, and then went away. Everyone thought I was nuts, and I had to be embarrassed by having to show my hiney to my doctor (who I happen to work very closely with). I'll have to ask him about this.

Thanks for the info!
alisande
18 years ago
I didn't know it had a name, but I've experienced this many times over the years, almost always on areas of skin on my left side. I figured it was related to my autoimmune issues. I can't say it was ever something I dealt with on a daily basis, though. It came and went.

The facial symptoms, however, are different, at least for me. Dental work will usually trigger trigeminal neuralgia in me, where one side of my face will become wildly sensitive, making it painful to wash my hair or blink my eye. This same pain will signal that an outbreak of herpes cold sores is on its way.
amicus
Original Author
18 years ago
aprilflower, I thought I might be getting shingles when this first happened because previous episodes had only been on one side of my face or scalp, and only lasted a few days. So after about the 5th day with this burning on my thigh/buttock area I was certain I'd soon break out in shingles there, but it never happened. It originally started out on the entire back of my left leg from heel to buttock. Thankfully within a few days the sensation slowly faded away, starting from my heel and moving up my leg until it reached the area where my thigh connects with my butt. Unfortunately the healing process stopped there so I still have the badly sunburned skin sensation right where my underwear leg elastic touches my skin. Oh well, I guess I should thank my lucky stars the rest of my leg cleared up because I couldn't imagine going 4 months feeling like the entire back of one leg was badly burned! Actually this whole thing has made me feel even more empathetic to those who suffer chronic physical pain daily, on a much worse scale than this.

Alisande, my friend suffers from trigeminal neuralgia occasionally, so I know how painful that is. Hers comes randomly though, and she luckily has never had a herpes outbreak. It must be bad to just get over the pain of the neuralgia attack only to know you're about to get cold sores : (

any of you suffer from allodynia?

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Happy_Go_Lucky_Gayle

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any of you suffer from allodynia?

Comments (5)

Happy_Go_Lucky_Gayle

amicusOriginal Author

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alisande

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