Pins and Needles: Pain and Relief

Not the stabbing pain you feel when you remove a lesion crust or scab.  Not the crawling sensation on the top of your skin.  The very painful pins and needles that sometimes precedes the crawling sensations.

If you have ever used a TENS unit, a muscle stimulator, or bone growth stimulator, you recognize the  needle-stick pain of having the electrical current short through a single point of skin.  This happens when you have a conductive pad dry out, or don't use enough gel.  All the electrical current that is normally spread out over a wide area bottlenecks through a single point.

I believe our uninvited and unwelcome guests use electrical currents and the pain is because your skin is dry.  The next time you experience that kind of pain, try spreading lotion or moisturizer over the area.  If you do it, please let us know if it worked for you!