Itchy Skin

[kindhornman]

My wife is a new ALS patient and she is complaining about itchy skin. Is this a common occurrence with als or is she just having something unrelated to the disease?

 

[tomby]

I think it's related, I'm really itchy also.
Instead of fingernails or a back scratcher, sometimes I can get my wife to work me over with one of those short bristle nail brushes. Awesome...

 

[brooksea]

I'm very sorry about your wife. Welcome to the forum.

Amazingly, the doc at the clinic tells us this is a dermatological problem and the Internal med doc says it's a "nerve ending" problem, as she sees no skin problems whatsoever. I've been trying to monitor where the itching occurs with the progress of the atrophy. I could be wrong, but the itching seems to be where he is losing/has lost muscle mass.

This seems to be a common problems among pALS, so I really think it has something to do with nerve irritation.

If you page down past these posts, you will see where other threads address this problem, also.

I use a hair brush on my husband, as well as the nail brush tomby mentioned!

Good luck!

 

[KC2U2]

I think it is ALS related, I get itchy quite a bit especially my lower legs and feet. I also get patches of dry skin which doc says is common with neurological disorders

 

[kelly]

My husbands skin itched so much when he was first diagnosed. It was insatiable. I tried to rub lotion...benadryl..but nothing seemed to quell the itch. ...hang in there

 

[Miss]

My husband suffered from horrible itching. We use Ketoconozole shampoo and lotion with zinc soap. Works liked like a charm. No more bouts of insatiable itching. It took about a week of using these products to back the itching off.

 

[sadiemae]

A medication called Gabapentin aka Neurontin works wonders for my husband.

 

[Al]

I use Vaseline intensive care in the green bottle, Uremol 10 and Mellaluca Renew for different areas. Different days have different itches.

AL

 

[kindhornman]

Thank all of you for your replies. Sadiemae my wife was on the Neurontin for over a year and one week she just started to hallucinate and couldn't distinguish when she was asleep and awake. I had to take her off that medication and she soon returned to normal. Her pulminologist told us that this was a common side effect. Now we are only using Baclefin for pain control. She seem to be sensitive to many medications that in the past she was okay with. Every day is a new one and I never know what to expect next.

Steven

 

[sadiemae]

I agree that Neurontin has a lot of side effects. We (he) just takes 1- 300mg capsule a day.

 

[pettal]

Hi, not sure if this is relevant but there is a condition called dermatomyositis that has alot of the symptoms caused by ALS. It might be worth discussing this with your doctor to make sure the diagnisis is correct. I have been looking for alternative diagnosis for my dad, he was diagnosed 6 weeks ago and is progressing extremely fast, he could transfer 2 months ago now he needs a hoist and is on bi-pap!
Good luck x