Throughout my middle school years, I would often be poked, scratched and often slapped by my friends quite frequently. You are probably thinking, “Wow, she should really make some new friends!” But they were doing this for a reason. Whenever they would do these things to me, my skin would produce a hive in the place where they touched or slapped me. I would often have big raised handprints on my leg, or my friend’s names almost carved into me. This is called dermatographic urticaria. It is more commonly referred to as skin writing.  It only affects 2-5% of the population. I discovered this phenomenon during my early middle school years. I just let it go for a while, and used it to entertain my friends, or as a topic of conversation. Finally, I asked my mom to take me to the doctor to figure our what this was. My doctor did not really know much about it. She told us that she heard stories about students in med school who would use people who had this condition to write on their backs, and draw things on their skin.  Patients with simple dermographism are asymptomatic and require no therapy.  Basically, I have no symptoms that could be detrimental to my health so it is just something cool that my body can do.

There is not many known causes for this condition.  It is believed that it is “caused by mast cells in the surface of the skin releasing histamines without the presence of antigens”  It is similar to an allergic reaction.  Symptoms are increased with tight clothing, physical stress, anxiety, and extreme heat or cold.  It can last many years without relief.  I have had this condition for about 7 years now.  My doctor told me that I could probably take an allergy pills such as Zyrtec, every day to make these hives go away.  I did that for a few days and it worked, but then I realized that I like having demographic urticaria, and it is very interesting.

James Spencer is a young man who has this disorder.  He said, “When I was in high school, I would use pen caps and try to make out words.”  I often do the same thing, I use a mechanical pencil without graphite and write words on my skin.  This research is anecdotal, because not many successful studies have been made on this rare skin condition.  This condition often gets worse in colder weather.  He describes it like this, “The marks last for usually like 35 to 45 minutes depending on my level of activity. At first the lines are really thin, depending on what I’m using, but then as it swells up it gets a little bigger…”  This is exactly how I would describe it as well.   “One of the major issues is making people aware of it,” explained Dr. Lang. “People develop a cycle of itching, then scratching and that further exacerbates the itching. “  If someone slaps my back, it gets itchy, then I itch it, then the new scratches make it more itchy and red.  It is an almost never ending cycle.  James often tried to keep it a secret, because he found it embarrassing most times.  Unlike James, I never felt this way about my condition.  I would often get annoyed with my friends because they would just slap me for fun, but I never felt embarrassed by it. 

The above picture says “Dermographic” I wrote this with my mechanical pencil and it popped up about 5 minutes later.  Many of of my new friends in college find this to be very cool, but very weird.  The video below shows a lot of pictures of different people with dermographic urticaria.  James said it best, “I just want to emphasize that it’s not an embarrassing thing. You don’t have to hide from it. People will actually be entertained by it, and it’s definitely something to talk about.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe_jnibVLNw