We've all had bug bites, or dry scalp, or a sunburn that causes itch. But what if you felt itchy all the time — and there was no relief? Atlantic journalist Annie Lowrey suffers from primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), a degenerative liver disease in which the body mistakenly attacks cells lining the bile ducts, causing them to inflame. The result is a severe itch that doesn't respond to antihistamines or steroids. She talks with Terry Gross about finding a diagnosis, treatment, and what scientists know about itch.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Stress and anxiety can lead to itch. So I would imagine a lot of Americans have done a lot of scratching over the past few months. There's the kind of itch that you scratch and poof, no more itch. But sometimes, the more you scratch, the more you itch.
And then there's the kind of itch that is so alive, explosive, persistent, and all-encompassing that nothing seems to help. And it hijacks your brain. That's the kind of itch that my guest Annie Lowry writes about in her Atlantic Magazine article titled Why People Itch and How to Stop It. It's about what researchers are learning about itch and how that's opening the door to new treatments.
Lowry suffers from itch so intense she's dug holes in her skin and scalp and once asked a surgeon to amputate her limbs. Her issue is related to a rare and degenerative liver disease. Part of her article is about her own itch and the extremes it's led her to. Lowry is a staff writer at The Atlantic, focusing on the economy and politics.
She's a former staff writer at The New York Times and New York Magazine. Annie Lowry, welcome to Fresh Air. Is today an itchy day for you?
It is. I have been itchy for about four days now. So we're talking during the daytime, so I'm not terribly itchy. But my feet are itchy, my scalp is itchy, and my hands are itchy. But it's a two out of ten. It's manageable.
So people are very dismissive of itch. And I want you to describe what your kind of itch feels like.
At its worst, it was like having poison ivy in the acute phase of poison ivy, although my skin didn't show anything. There was no rash or anything like that. And it was completely maddening. It was impossible to do anything other than focus on scratching or trying to find relief from the itching. And the type of itching that I have is not sensitive to the medications that we have that normally...
turn the itching dial down. So the two big ones being steroids and antihistamines. And it just became all encompassing. I would spend hours in cold baths. I would walk to try to get rid of the itch. It was most intense. I've been pregnant twice. I have two kids. And at the end of one pregnancy, I asked my my surgeons, I was like, if this doesn't stop, I don't want these limbs on my body anymore.
It was really debilitating. And I'm not like that all the time. And in fact, the itching has never been quite as severe as it was in my pregnancies. Now the itching is much calmer, although it is persistent, but it comes and goes. At its worst, it's really, you know, just like pain is debilitating, itch is debilitating.
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