Hi Chris @artscaping @chandyjohn1 @stobie2019 @lorirenee1 @rwinney and any other itch sufferers, I am still relatively new to Connect and have not ventured out to other discussions besides the first one I have been posting to, but read John Bishop's request for people to post their neuropathy stories, then went to the main neuropathy question page and saw your discussion about neuropathic itch. My wife Linda is the neuropathy sufferer in our family, not me. It has been localized to her feet since 2014. Around April or so of 2019 she had an attack of very severe deep itch in her feet. I remember it well as I was in the kitchen preparing our dinner when she started having trouble and in very short order was sobbing with torment from this itch that was so deep in her feet that she could not even get any relief from scratching at all. After this whole new issue began I started reading online about people suffering from itch, whether from neuropathy or fibromyalgia or whatever. I found some good forums (this is before I knew about Connect). On one post by someone they mentioned that they had used a vibrator of some sort. That got me to thinking, "do we have some sort of vibrator around the house?" Nothing came to mind. At some point it occurred to me that my Sonicare toothbrush is sort of a vibrator. I assumed it probably would not help Linda but decided to ask her if she was interested in trying to use it on her itch areas. She was also skeptical, but she was desperate enough to try it anyway. So she turned on the Sonicare toothbrush with the brush attached and held the backside of the brush (the hard plastic part not the bristles) to her foot and started to move it back and forth over an itchy area. To our shared surprise this actually stopped the itch. From then on she has kept a Sonicare toothbrush with its charge stand on the table next to where she sits in the living room. I can't begin to tell you how much she has used it since and the amount of relief it has given her. Since then she has also acquired another vibrator that has a slower deeper vibration. Sonicares vibrate at about 5000 rpm's and this other one is probably a tenth of that but it is stronger. Here is the Amazon link to that one: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B018U6Q1V2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I don't know if you Chris or anyone else would benefit from the Sonicare idea but I wanted to make sure I told you just in case it might be helpful info to you. I know there have been times when her itch has not been helped by the Sonicare but I also know that it consistently has been a big help many many times and continues to be.

Aside from the Sonicare she has also gotten relief at times from Aveeno cream (purchased at Walmart). That seems to be pretty consistently helpful. She also used to use a DMSO gel and liked it for a while but at some point it stopped helping. One thing she learned early on was NOT TO SCRATCH. She will use all of her willpower that she can muster to not scratch because that is just a losing battle and totally counterproductive she has found. This itch caught us both completely off guard and coincided with a worsening of all of her neuropathy symptoms. She has since been housebound and has not been out more than a couple of times in the last ten months. Regards, Hank

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