Scratching , blood, abrasives and damaged skin care

Scratching is like grooming without a brain

Don’t confuse grooming with scratching.
Grooming is much slower and precise.
Your nail puts a lot more pressure on your skin as you carefully remove the epidermis that keeps the folds bonded or forcibly open them.

The tools for the job

Scratching is all what mammals with claws can do, and still, they’re lucky compared to those with hooves.
But claws cannot open folds and rake up dead epidermis coats.
Primates have evolved towards special equipment for these tasks: flat nails.

Pruritus

Pruritus is the name science gives to your urge to scratch.
This is a major misunderstanding.
It isn't an urge to scratch, it's an urge to groom.
Human reaction to it has regressed, devolving to a primitive response.
Pruritus is a perfectly well-designed natural sensation, telling you where your body needs grooming.
Scientist have always been wondering about it because patients would feel severe itching, but the skin was often undamaged to their eyes.

Misread signals

You are always feeling pruritus.
You are unaware of it most of the time because it is below your pain threshold.
But when it goes above, you often simply ignore it.
You've been told and trained not to scratch.
This is right, you should not scratch, you should groom.

How pruritus works

Folded skin is pinched skin.
The feeling resembles a fine pinch.
When it goes above your threshold, it is a very strong pinch.
It is not to be ignored.
You have to groom the spot immediately.
This itch may not come again for months.
If you don't groom it now, make a mental note of its position to do the job later.

Similarity of itches

It is not easy to distinguish different types of signals your skin may be sending you.
Light pain due to small cuts, allergic reactions, insect's presence or bite and pruritus all have similarities in the feeling the produce.
I think that a given area of your skin has only a limited set of signals it can send to your brain to indicate its distress.
Use your informed judgment.
In my case, 99% of my itches turned out to be pruritus.
My folds and crossings were crying out to be groomed.

Scratching hurts the skin

You don't scratch long before your nails penetrate the epidermis.
Scratching rips the skin and you can often see blood lines where they have passed.
This is highly detrimental to your skin.
It takes days to heal.
Don't do it.

 

Blood

Grooming is external medicine
Grooming concerns only the outside of you.
Your skin is the frontier between what is in and what is out of you.
You only groom the outmost layers of your epidermis.

Grooming and blood

Hitting blood is a sure sign that you have transgressed this boundary.
As soon as you strike blood, stop grooming that place until it heals.

Where to groom

You don’t want to groom the whole surface of your skin.
Some place need it, some don’t.
The only regions to be groomed are the folds and their crossings.
If some epidermis is lying between these, it should go by itself.

You can only apply pressure on the folds and their crossings.
Applying such pressure elsewhere would harm the skin and cause blood to flow.
The force you put on your nails can be several times stronger on groomable regions without causing damage to the skin.
In fact, you are healing it.

Exceptions

On some parts of your body, the corneal layer of the epidermis has become so hard it prevents you from feeling the folds.
These areas usually include:
•The scalp
•The temples
•The nose and between the eyes
•The front chin plate
•The mustache area
•The elbows
•The lower part of the knees

You can use four finger scratching strokes on those regions.
They generally won't bleed and you can put lots of pressure.

Obligate bleeding

When the skin of an area is badly folded, mostly when you're over forty, it will not be groomable without bleeding.
Each time it bleeds, you should stop grooming immediately in the close vicinity and let it heal for the night, but it will bleed again when you groom it on the following day.
It will probably bleed every time you groom it for months sometimes years.
There is no way out.
Gradually though, it will resist longer and lose less blood.
Then, it won't bleed anymore and the flesh will be all flexible, healthy and soft again.

Watching for blood

Since grooming is done blind, you may not notice that your nails have slashed the flesh.
Blood is warmer than the skin and feels wet.
It gives your grooming moves a slide.
Still, it is so bad to groom in an open wound that you have to be extra careful to react as soon as it occurs.
The only way to be sure is to look at your nails.
I look at mine anytime I'm in doubt.

Disinfection

At first I would clean every wound with alcohol.
I stopped doing so after a few months.
The areas were too large and numerous and disinfecting was painful.
I have not experienced any problem with simply letting the blood dry and be washed away at bath or shower.
Of course I keep my nails as clean as possible by washing them tens of times a day but, sometimes after just five minutes of grooming, I would not call them clean anymore.
Grooming is a natural behavior. Other primates in the wild surely strike blood often while they groom.
Use your brain and wisdom.

 

Abrasives

Utilizing abrasives
is similar to scratching

Stay away from abrasives such as: rasps, stones, exfoliating brushes or gloves, exfoliating cleansers and soaps, chemical exfoliants, ...
Their action is similar to scratching in that it does not discriminate between folded and unfolded skin.
Some areas benefit slightly while healthy skin is irritated and harmed.

The facecloth technique

If, for some reason, you feel your skin would benefit from some type of scrubbing, try doing it with a wet facecloth.
Don't use it in the usual manner, try to groom through it.
Your skin is protected from the sharpness of the nails and receives a controlled abrasion.
You can still feel your skin through the facecloth and only scrape areas that need it.
Use this technique lightly. It may take days for your skin to recover.

 

Damaged skin care

Your skin can present areas with major problems.

 

Never scratch or pinch your skin.