Peppermint oil=Christmas in July

I returned home from my Poconos trip yesterday, and my suffering began shortly after. I don’t mean to whine, but I have discovered via WebMD and other online means of self-diagnosis (cheaper than a doctor) that I have a worse reaction than most people to the sun. It’s genetic and torturous, and I’m barely even exaggerating.

This is what happened: I got moderately sunburned, and my nerve endings fried, causing subcutaneous itching—that’s itching below the surface of the skin, therefore unscratchable. I spent last night suffering while trying to remember all the good things I’ve heard about morphine drips, and debating the ER. Don’t laugh, because you don’t understand. A woman from the 2005 archive of a health forum understood—she defined this condition as “an itch so extreme it pinches you from the inside until you want to rip your skin off.” Another forum member described an itch so maddening that he drove recklessly, behaved crazily, and abused numerous substances in an effort to find relief, eventually crumpling on the floor of the ER in a drunken, sobbing heap. Another forum member sternly advised him against using alcohol to self-medicate.

Aren’t those outdated forums comforting? So many people with the same problems as you, seeking answers! Except, no one had provided an answer to those people from 2005. Were they still suffering? Had they discovered a remedy or cure?

On a one-page website which I’ll call vinegar.com, a woman touted vinegar’s magical anti-itch properties. “It’s a miracle,” she wrote. “My sunburn itch is cured!” So I doused myself with a bottle of it at around 5:30 this morning, and the result was that I was smelly but still itchy. The old standby, aloe lotion, didn’t do anything either. One answerer on Answers.com even suggested practically scalding yourself in a hot bath, which I wasn’t brave enough to try.

Then, finally, I came upon relief, and a heavenly chorus swelled. The deliverer was peppermint oil. Peppermint is quite potent, and in fact the bottle advises you to cautiously dilute it with olive oil if you MUST apply it to your skin. I poured a quarter of the bottle onto my body, undiluted, and repeated this throughout the day. The resulting deep, stinging numb rendered me crippled on the couch at first. But I got used to it. I acquired more peppermint oil. I am now typing from within a peppermint aura, my vision blurred by a peppermint haze. I smell like a Junior Mints factory, but I don’t itch. What the long-term consequences of peppermint oil are, I can’t say. Perhaps by tomorrow, my skin will have dissolved, forcing me to seek solutions from still other homeopathic forums and quack websites. But for now, I remain optimistic, invigorated, and, oddly, craving a candy cane.