Chrissie. sorry to hear that you have this symptom, it can get horrific, it almost drove me to suicide at one point it was so unbearable. *Note..fortunately I no longer have that symptom.
My itching was so much like what Mark described. Scratching didnt help a lot.. I think I used to just press hard on the area of the itch and that worked better then scratching it.. as the more I scratched, the worst it often seemed to get.
The very first episode I had was like millions of insects crawling under my skin
to the level of sharp stabbing pains about the strength of a pin-prick or bee sting which start happening all over my body.
Mine started out worst in certain places of my body, then over several days.. spread out so all areas of my skin were involved (thou some were worst then others), to finally as Mark had, the addition to feeling like one is being bitten by something like a spider. I'd actually jump and yelp whenever that happened.
Unlike Mark.. hot baths didnt relieve my issue unless I'd added certain things to the bath water. I used to add in 1kg of table salt and 250g bicarb soda, sleeping in a bath of this was the only way I could sleep as otherwise the itching was hell. This in the bath could make it itch worst for a short while (like if it drove whatever was in and UNDER my skin crazy) but then would bring me relief as it felt like it was making things fall out of my skin.
My case went worst around a certain time of the night.. eg it may of been around 11pm... it was like whatever it was surfaced more at that time and felt like it went into a feeding frenzy. (result of a parasite?? or result of a chemical/hormonal body change which happens at night). Anyway.. in my case there was also a clear cycle to the issue. You say your issue happens at night..so Im wondering if you are experiencing the same.
I ended up diagnosing myself with Morgellon's... after like a heap of tiny hard like rice looking like grains started falling out of the pours of my fingers (on research after this incident I found out that some Morgellons cases instead of threads.. have experienced rice like grains)... more fell out the more i moved my fingers.
There was also an incident in which i saw three little like spidery looking parasites about 3mm in size which actually moved and vanished when i tried to look closer and poked them, just under the fine skin on the back of one of my hands (undiscovered parasite??).
Other things which those things didnt like were..... lavender oil (I almost poisoned myself with it and made myself quite ill as at one point I covered my whole skin in it). They hated white sage smoke even more then the lavender oil.. if you burn a white sage smudge stick and waft it over the skin.. it also would make the things go into a frenzy and it felt like they were coming to the surface more and like coming out of me. It brought temporary relief to an area.
Anyway..if you try any of those, let me now as Im curious if you could have the same whatever it is.. (from what mine reacted too.. I think some kind of parasite.. maybe only a few bigger ones in the body which I saw only the once but maybe 1000s of babies which are too small to see. I never looked at my skin throu a microscope as I didnt have one or go to the doctor over my issues (as I only had terrible doctors anyway as far as ME/CFS and all the weird stuff goes, so had given up on them).
*note.. tape worm eggs apparently can look like white rice grains and may come from the skin but Ive seen photos of those and mine didnt look like those.. they were so hard and smooth whatever they were.. smoother looking then the tapeworm egg pictures Ive seen online. After I had the incident with them coming out of my finger pores.. the whole itchy itching and this whole issue suddenly went away, within 24 hrs was completely gone. (maybe some life cycle of something had been completed). Now for the very weird thing.. I put the hard rice shaped things into a jar.. as I finally had something to show so at this point I was going to take to a doctor..covered it with gladwrap but the next day the jar was empty.. (so maybe it wasnt eggs but some chemical which dissolves to air?? Situation was soo weird that no wonder doctors think that those who have Morgellons are mental health patients... I could make no sense of it myself.
Maybe all the salt and bicarb baths (id spend 4hrs per day in that for relief) and all the other things I did killed it?
Another thought I had from reading different things.. Ive read that one can have fibreglass poisoning and the fibreglass can go into the skin pores and come out looking like small grains. (some maybe what my skin released for a couple of hours one day was fibreglass? I have handled it before way back in the past). *Note.. I had that itchy crawling/biting thing for a couple of years before the rice grain like incident.
But that fibreglass poisoning thing wouldnt explain why I was experiencing a certain cycle to the crawling things in which they became far more active at night.
When I had this crawling issue very severely and the things were surfacing at the time and coming off.. eg if I'd smudged msyelf with white sage earlier or put something on my skin they didnt like... I found that where I'd felt all the stuff dropped off of me, if another person came along and sat in that same place I'd been..they'd start itching a lot themselves (at times even to the point in which they'd get up and move from that spot). some of those peopole then were itching a bit for an hour or two but whatever it was.. didnt seem to completely infest them. (maybe due to the ME we are more suspectable to this parasiteor something??? .. why could others get it on their skin but it not then go onto being a big issue for them?).
