What to do about a phantom itch?

What Is An Itch? and what makes us Itch?

• What is an itch - and what actually makes us itch?

• Answer:

  Itching, also known as pruritus, starts with some kind of external stimuli, including bugs, dust, clothing fibers and hair. Like tickling, itching is a built-in defense mechanism that alerts your body to the potential of being harmed. In this case, it might be the potential of being bit by a bug. When the stimuli lands on your skin, it may not bother you at first, but soon it will begin to rub back and forth across your skin. Once the hair or dust scratches your skin's surface layer, receptors in the dermis of the skin will become irritated. In a split second, these receptors send a signal through fibers in the skin to your spinal cord and then up to the cerebral cortex in your brain.