Contact Dermatitis/Immune Skin Responses TMS?

So. My “thing” that I have always identified my… well, identity with has been pelvic symptoms. I was diagnosed with pudendal neuralgia, vulvodynia and IC which I have basically 90% healed from thus far. I have some floating symptoms but nothing that stops me from living my life. I’ve been doing pretty well.

HOWEVER, now that my anxieties have calmed down about the things going on with my pelvis, I’m beginning to notice *other* things that are there that didn’t used to be. lol. Like for instance, I am suddenly “allergic” to the adhesive in bandaids, tapes and medical tape of any kind. Never in my life have I ever been allergic to anything. I have been fortunate enough to not have a food allergy or sensitive skin but now, I suddenly get allergic contact dermatitis (or chemical contact dermatitis, I don’t really know and I don’t want to pay too much attention to what variety of dermatitis it is) from anything that has an adhesive on it. I think I first noticed this sensitivity not long after my pelvic pain started (and yes, I was an emotional, terrified mess because I had no idea what was happening to me and doctors kept making it worse by telling me this was going to be the rest of my life now) but I didn’t think much of it because my mind was elsewhere.
It’s occurring to me now that this new allergy could also be a TMS thing but I don’t know. It feels so random. lol. My TMS symptoms have always been things like tension migraines whenever I am under stress (been happening since I was a teen; I “caught” these from my mom who also struggles with migraine since I was a child but through somatic tracking they go away pretty quickly when they come on), random knee pain, itchy ears, itchy shins, random nerve pains on my extremities, and so on. The new “adhesive allergy” throws me though. And I can actually trace it back to when it began which was literally like two months after the pelvic pain started, I would react to medical tape when I’d rush to the emergency room hoping anyone could figure out what I was in so much pain in my pelvic region. I thought it was weird but I didn’t think much of it.

I got a tattoo over this past weekend and my artist placed medical tape over it and when I peeled it off yesterday, my skin looks angry and red in the shape of the medical tape. I was wondering what any of your thoughts might be? Could newly sensitive skin be a mind body issue as well? I rarely see anyone bring up contact dermatitis in TMS forums and I’m curious to know what your thoughts, experiences or theories may be! I’m not scared of this new development, just to clarify. I’m more like “huh, that’s new and random”. Haha. I have read Skin Deep but I don’t remember if the author mentions contact dermatitis possibly being the manifestation of an overly sensitive nervous system that lowers the immune response… but I believe it could be a thing.

 

Hello Marie, yes, contact dermatitis is a TMS equivalent. Psoriasis, allergies, food intolerance, pretty much everything immune related. Research science shows that the brain has a representation of every part of the body as it relates to immune functioning. There are memories of the immune system. The immune response can be conditioned, like pain. It is activated through... The autonomic nervous system. Of course the researchers are careful never to mention that a thing like an emotion or a thought could be involved in the process, so the reasons why it happens are my "speculation."

The brain can actually detect substances very quickly, and makes the decision whether or not to produce an inflammatory response that can be exaggerated in severity or entirely unnecessary. The brain does this for the same reasons that it makes a decision to produce pain or not.

When someone told you that was going to be the rest of your life, that was a nocebo.