Content: graphic health stuff
Hey folks,
I want to talk to you about something that's really affected my quality of life in a major way, something I'm judged for a lot, something that's been making my life super difficult, especially with all this legal stuff I'm dealing with right now... It’s sucks showing up in court, dealing with attorneys, my face all bloody, an open wound so visible and obvious right on my chin, I pick at it every single day, and because of the blood thinners I’m on, it just doesn’t stop bleeding once it starts. It's so embarrassing and frustrating... I have this chronic itching on my chin. It never stops. I scratch and pick it at for literally hours every day. I literally carry around a guitar with me everywhere, to distract myself, to keep my hands busy so I don't scratch my face.
I can't help it, it itches SO BADLY, ALL THE TIME. I can't sleep. It's embarrassing in social situations. I am so frustrated and sick of it.
I'm living with symptoms from OCD and dermatillomania (obsessive-compulsive skin picking disorder) and trichotillomania (obsessive compulsive hair plucking disorder), but that's not what the root cause of this is. It's not psychiatric, it's not dermatological.... I've been to a psychiatrist, I've been to a dermatologist. I need a pain management doctor to inject Botox or a nerve block or use radio frequency ablation to kill off that nerve so it's just numb instead. This is awful.
It's called mental nerve neuralgia... It's damage to the nerve, under the skin, scratching the skin does not resolve it.
There's this spot on my chin, on the left side, right where the mental nerve comes out of the jawbone, and it itches so badly, just in that one spot. And it itches so badly I spend hours every day in the mirror, with tweezers, trying to pull at whatever’s causing all this pain and itching, trying to get it to stop. I can't help it. It's taking over my life.
I've seen a dermatologist and they gave me stuff for sebaceous glands overproducing oil, but that's not what this is about, this is something else. I also have sebaceous dermatitis, but this itch, this nerve pain that's just not stopping, it's something separate, deeper inside the tissue. And it's been going on for a year and a half, maybe even two years, and it started at this one specific spot and I just can’t get rid of it.
I went to pain management, and they put me on gabapentin, and I'm already on tramadol and tizanidine for my back pain, and now gabapentin four times a day, 600 milligrams, for this nerve pain. But it still itches so much that I spend hours, literally hours, in front of the mirror, every day. It's ruining my life, my sleep, my ability to go out in public, to perform as a musician, to do live streams, it makes me not want to take selfies, it's embarrassing.
I started carrying a guitar everywhere (really!), to keep my hands busy, so I don't scratch, so I don't think about it constantly.... It really affects how people, attorneys, the judge, my healthcare providers, retail workers, cops, everyone.... how they see me, how they take me seriously, or not. And I'm not joking, this is not in my head, this is real, and I need a doctor to really listen to me, to take me seriously, I need some kind of treatment that works, like a nerve block, something, because this... it's just too much.
And you know, being a trans woman on Medicaid, and not having a lot of money, it just makes it all feel even more hopeless, like doctors don't listen, they don't believe me, and it’s hard, it's so hard not to judge myself when I know others are judging me too. People have told me that they think I’m on meth because I pick at my face, but I've never touched the stuff in my life. This is not that, this is nerve damage, something pushing on the mental nerve, like a tumor, or some kind of neuropathic problem, and it's not getting treated right.
So, I'm sharing all this because I want you to understand, to really get how much of a problem this is for me, and how it's affecting my quality of life, my credibility in social situations, legally in court, trying to fall sleep at night. It's really affecting everything. I have PTSD as well, and chronic back pain, and i also have obstructive sleep apnea, a sleep disorder.... It's so hard for me to fall asleep, and stay asleep, because I ruminate and have nightmares and flashbacks, I wake up screaming, hearing my dad's voice in my head SCREAMING at me like he used to do every time he saw me sleeping. (when I lived with my dad, it made him angry to see me sleep, and he would wake me up and SCREAM at me until he was hoarse, every single day for 2 years while I lived with him. I have audio recordings of it).
I'm so tired. I can't stand this. And this is on top of my heart issues, the reason I'm on blood thinners, and why it keeps bleeding so much - it's not just picking and scratching, it's also that my blood doesn't coagulate, so once it starts bleeding, it takes a very long time to stop.
I put Aspercreme with 4% lidocaine that you can buy OTC on that spot probably 50 times a day, and it helps a little bit, but it's so maddening. I've been trying to get this treated for TWO YEARS. I need something more powerful, like an injection that numbs it up, I don't know what. I can't stand this.
Thanks for listening, for understanding how difficult this is for me, and just... thanks for not being judgemental about it.
Love you everybody.
