118. Chickenpox without itching

PERSON: Alberto Torelli.
DESCRIPTION: chickenpox.
APPROACH: auto-hypnotic hypoesthesia (see details below).
RESULT: [diary of the week of illness]: 1) SATURDAY: I'm feeling very tired, utterly powerless, and I go to bed at 9 pm; 2) SUNDAY: I get up at 10 am, after 13 hours of deep, continuous, and very satisfying sleep, but despite this, in the afternoon I'm again exhausted, and in the evening I go back to sleep early again; during the night I have alternating shivers and sweating, with continuous interruptions of my slumber; 3) MONDAY: morning I get up feeling extremely tired, and I notice some large blisters in the arms, body, and forehead, and I decide to go to the doctor, who diagnoses chickenpox immediately, and prescribes an antihistamine and mentholated talcum powder, commenting that the varicella is worse in adults than in children; in the evening I go in bed, but sleep is unsatisfactory; 4) TUESDAY: I wake up, and when I look myself in the mirror in the bathroom I see that my face and body are completely covered with pustules; I count over 60 on my face, and about 180 on my body. At that point I start to worry seriously, fearing that the itching will be dreadful, so I wonder what I can do in this situation, and I think: "if I could confine and concentrate all the itching on the top of my head, then I could scratch safely without damage, because the hair would protect the underlying skin from scratching". While I think this, I notice that I'm feeling full of energy and without any fatigue or weakness. In the afternoon, this energy increases further, to the point that trying to do some physical exercise I realize that I have a lot more power than usual. In the evening, all this energy becomes concentrated in the head, which gets very hot; my forehead begins to irradiate an impressive heat which resists also to a continuous jet of cold water; then I go to bed, but I find that I can not support the head on the pillow as the head has become hot and sensitive at such a point that I cannot bear even the contact with the pillow, hence I'm forced to sit in bed all the night, which, surprisingly, passes rather quickly; in the meantime a very bad pain in my throat appears, accompanied by a cough, so I fear complications; 5) WEDNESDAY: 'morning I get very tired due to insomnia, so I go to the bathroom and right back to bed, but then I notice that the "fire" in the head and forehead has lowered, hence I try to lie down; as I put my head on the pillow, the heat increases, but it's bearable. At that point I decide to stay still and enjoy the much-desired horizontal position for a while, in order to rest at least physically. Within a short time (I can not say exactly how much), I realize with amazement that I am totally asymptomatic, and I feel the need to check this strange situation; in this way I find that in fact I'm good not only at the level of the head, but also throughout the rest of the body, and even touching and rubbing the pustules no itching develops. Still incredulous, I therefore decide to test deeply the validity of this apparent well-being, so I put myself upside down, with my head and hands on the floor, bringing my feet and legs up, and then slowly raising my hands from the floor as much as possible, in order to shift almost all the body weight on my head, but even in this case no discomfort develops in my head; on the contrary, this position seems to me even pleasant; after a couple of minutes I interrupt because I'm all sweaty, but since I have no more throat pain nor cough, I decide to take a shower; in the bathroom I realize that many pustules are drying up and becoming dark; finally it's evening, and the absence of symptoms persists, to my great joy; during these days everybody has asked me how's the itch, but I informed them that I'm still waiting to feel this famous itching; at night I fall asleep normally, but at 3 am I wake up totally sweaty, and I feel very cold, go to the bathroom and change my nightclothes, and then I return and put a towel on the bed because my transpiration has wet even the mattress; 6) THURSDAY: in the morning, at 6 am, I have again an incredibly strong transpiration, but I do not feel any sensation of hot or cold; during the afternoon I have slept many times, and during all the day I have had intense perspiration, but neutral, that is without feelings of high or low temperature; 7) FRIDAY: in the morning I get up quite refreshed, and I notice many very prominent crusting spots on my skin, next to detach; at 20:30 the first crust spontaneously detaches (diameter: 1 mm). At least it's over, I'm coming out of that.
UPDATE (1 month): in short, I passed through the chickenpox in complete absence of any itching (therefore I didn't need the antihistamine nor the mentholated talcum powder); after only 9 days after the onset of pustules on my face and body I have been able, at last, to shave my beard without problems; finally, last but certainly not least for its importance, the process of hypno-anesthesia against itching, once activated, survived in the time, and kept itself available on request; in fact, three weeks later, on the seashore, near the rocks, in late afternoon, I was bitten by mosquitoes in the left leg (at three points: calf, thigh, and buttock), and, of course, I started to scratch vigorously; after a while, during the scratching, I said to myself: "but with the chicken pox how did I do?". Immediately, while I was still thinking that, the itching from the insect bites decreased, and after a few moments vanished completely, and it never reappeared. In addition, the bites become red and the swelling disappeared within 24 hours, i.e. definitely faster than usual.

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