Introduction

Sensitivity is the registration in the brain of sensations from the body. With that it also perceives the environment. It is therefore one of the senses. You feel with this sense of touch.

 

Sensibility can be divided into:

• Gnostic sensibility (sense of touch): The gnostic sensibility registers specific sensations, such as being able to feel touch and vibration, pressure perception, fine touch and position sense (proprioception) by means of receptors: the mechanoreceptors. Gnosis means 'recognition'. Fine touch means that someone with their eyes closed feels exactly what they have in their hand.
  
• Vital sensibility: The vital sensibility registers pain, temperature and coarse touch by means of nociceptors. Vital stimuli can be dangerous for the body, so that the body can react in a reflex. For example, think of pulling your hand back when you burn yourself.

 

 

A small piece of skin with the different sensory or tactile receptors

image source: Blausen 

Disorder of the sense of touch after brain injury

After damage to the brain, a disorder can occur in the gnostic sensibility (sense of touch). This can have a very unpleasant consequence.

People constantly experience sensations as if a part of the body is bubbling and tingling. It feels very painful. People even indicate that it feels as if a knife is cutting through them.
The sense of touch is a sense and the disorder is therefore a
sensory consequence of brain injury. Unfortunately, it is also an
invisible consequence and above all unknown, misunderstood and for most an untreatable consequence.
Gnostic sensibility disorder / disorder of the sense of touch can cause severe, serious sensory (sensory) overstimulation. The consequences of this form of overstimulation are just as severe. There is no therapy that can counteract this.

 

Neurological examination
The gnostic sensibility can be examined by examining the vibration sense. Does the patient feel the vibrations in the leg or arm when the doctor holds a vibrating tuning fork against the bone? The movement sense of joints is examined. The position sense of the joints is examined. Does the patient know whether his or her own finger is extended or bent, for example. The fine sense of touch is tested with a cotton ball. The doctor asks the patient to close his or her eyes and then touches the patient with the cotton ball in various places, on the fingers, thumbs, toes, knees, etc. The patient is then asked to say where he or she thinks he or she is being touched.

 

At the same time, it is examined whether someone can distinguish between sharp objects and soft blunt objects. Among other things, the doctor places the point of a pencil on the patient's wrist (that is the sharp side) and then the blunt back of the pencil. The patient is asked whether they feel any difference, both with their eyes open and closed. This is also done on the legs. The doctor pricks without a clear pattern. read more about the neurological examination on the special page.

 

Experience story of Catharina

In 2012 I had a brain hemorrhage in the thalamus.

The blood from the hemorrhage has flowed all the way to the cerebral cortex.

As a result, I am limited on the left side. For the first few years, I simply lost the left half of my body. If I couldn't see my arm or leg, it wasn't there.

Over the years, some feeling has returned, but on the left side of my body it feels like you're going through a thick fog.

I constantly have a tingling and buzzing feeling in my body. If I come into contact with something, that buzzing and tingling feeling in my body gets worse, which can sometimes cause severe pain. I have the feeling that this is getting worse and worse.

The left side of my face often feels swollen and painful.

 

I suffer from thalamic pain.

This is often classified as neuropathic pain, but it is really different. Neuropathic painkillers do not help me, they only make me drowsy. Thalamic pain is also called Déjerine Roussy.

 

I have not found any therapies. In the rehabilitation clinic I was already told that I had to learn to live with it. I have been living with it for twelve years now, but it is not going to be easy.

Sounds, especially mechanical sounds such as drilling, mowing and sawing etc., come in through my skin rather than through my hearing.
I feel sound. That is also very painful! Sometimes it feels like someone is cutting through my skin with a knife.

 

Certain fabrics on my body feel unpleasant. Clothing in particular is a nightmare. I can only tolerate 100% cotton. I don't feel a clothing brand as special, but I experience it. My body starts to tingle, burn, hurt and stiffen.

 

If the feeling lasts too long, I can no longer walk. For example, I now have new shoes. I wear my shoes until they are completely worn out, because new shoes are a nightmare. There are other pressure points and they are often chemical synthetic fabrics. I can only tolerate 100% cotton and there are no 100% cotton shoes.

 

Misunderstanding 

People don't understand. 'I don't see anything wrong with you, yes you walk with difficulty, but you shouldn't complain; there are people who have it worse'. Oh well, sometimes when I get a bit grumpy about that, I say: "Feel my body for 1 day, then we'll talk again". They are right in a way, I can still walk and ride my tricycle, but always that pain, that "squeaking" feeling in your body. But it is what it is...