Sensitive Skin?

[Jwarrior77]

Does anyone experience their skin being super sensitive to either scratches or pressure? Ever since I was little my skin was always naturally sensitive to scratches. If you scratched the skin it would leave a red streak similar to dermatographia only it wouldn't raise. For example a lot of times when I would get a haircut, the back of my neck would sometimes get red where the shaver grazed over that area of skin. My parents noticed when these things like that happened but we always chalked it up to my skin being overly sensitive. However these past couple of years and especially after I developed POTS any amount of pressure on my skin even for short periods of time will make the whole area red. If I would put my head down to take a nap at school the whole area of where my head made contact with either my arm or desk would become red. I know it's not normal because my friends would put the same amount of pressure on their heads when sleeping and never develop these red spots. That was when I was in school, nowadays any pressure on my skin whether it be any object pressing up against it, sitting down, or anything really would become red very quickly. Is this related to MCAS? My sensitivity seems to have increased dramatically after getting pots. I will post a pic to understand what I'm talking about. The one pic is where the seatbelt pressed against my skin briefly. Sorry for this post being so long.

[brainchild]

I have this too. You’ve described it very well. Same story for me - weird skin reactions to scratches, lying against objects - started in childhood and no one else did the same. Someone would say, ‘oh my god, what happened to you!’  I wouldn’t know what they were talking about, then would look and see red marks. It would look like I just had tangled with a wild animal and all that had happened was I had just lightly scratched an area. I’ve got suspect MCAS (per MCAS literate allergist).  I don’t get dermatographism either. I had blotchy skin as a kid - looks like the pictures of livedo reticularis. I’ve also gotten red skin from the shower - only where the water was hitting me. I used to flush for no reason. 

Do you sometimes get white marks? I will scratch an area, the general area will turn red, but the lines I scratched will turn white.  

I find antihistamines help. I went off them before my specialty center appt and was able to get pictures of the skin reaction.

I’ll add a couple pics.  I get red at the back of my head; this one was after lying supine for a massage. My leg was itchy and it reacted.  I took picture for close to 30 min and you can still see the red marks. Not the best picture of the white marks because I was driving  

 

[Jwarrior77]

I relate to a lot of what you said as well. People would also mention what happened to your neck or arm not knowing what they are talking about only to look and see that it has become red from when I scratched the area. I get the red back/neck where the shower water hits it and also the white streaks sometimes after scratching which is also interesting that you mentioned that. I'm probably going to go on some antihistamines soon for the suspected MCAS anyways so possibly it will help with this too.