sensory issues? or something else?

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This sounds strange I know, but my hands go through stages of extreme sensitivity, touching almost anything causes much discomfort, especially touching fabric, wood, paper, or anything with much texture. Sometimes, even thinking about the textures causes the reaction, when this is happening, if I touch fabric, I get nauseated, my hands tingle, I get chills, I feel a tingle go through me, my mouth waters, and my teeth, lips and tongue feel weird. I have had episodes of this since I was a child, but lately its been a lot worse, and is even affecting my feet and lower ARM, though much more mildly then my hands..

what causes this? Is it a sensory disorder? I have searched and searched online, and find that there are others suffering from this, but they have no idea what it is either... I have yet to find a name for it... Does anyone else struggle with it? My daughter has the same thing, except hers is only to silk, satin, and polyester, any help would be appreciated greatly!

It is common to have sensory overload in autism and Aspergers. A lot of people on here (including me) can easily relate to you.

Thanks, Ive been looking online at what it could possibly be, and I've come up with the possibility of sensory issues, or neuropathy.. and I found that some people only have reaction to touching certain things, like cotton balls or cotton t-shirts, and they are diagnosed as having a phobia called
sidonglobophobia which is 'fear of cotton balls' many believe that dx is wrong, they aren't afraid of them, it just causes them physical discomfort to touch cotton, the symptoms they list are the same ones I have, teeth hurting, chills, etc when they touch it... my daughter is 9, and she also has this, but for her, its only silk, satin, and polyester that hurt her.

The discomfort or reactions of mouth watering, teeth hurting, and cringing is very much like the common nails on a cardboard reaction are these the same reactions a person gets with sensory overload? And I wonder if there is anything one can do to ease these discomforts? (anything people has tried, that works?)thanks.

-C

I just found out that that's the awkward issue i have with my hands!! thank you so much, it might be the reason why i can't have dry hands because that makes my hand's texture so rough.. which makes it rough on rough, VERY sensitive to that.

Yes, it could definitely be a sensory issue related to autism, I have that on other parts of my body, but luckily not on my hands - that would be hard! I have the most sensitivity on my waist, arms and neck. I never wear turtlenecks, needless to say! And I wear t-shirts even in winter. I can tolerate sweatshirts for the most part, so I just wear those. Experiment with what materials if any you CAN handle, and just stick to those.

I can relate. I have global sensory processing dysfunction....Part of this is that my tactile processing doesn't work smoothly. Two xamples:

Any kind of light touch (from people or objects) can actually feel sort of "prickly" or like an electric shock with "rounded edges"--it's intensely horrible and it triggers a reflex reaction where my jumps or twitches, and I get chills (like you mentioned) running up and down my spine.......Other people have thought that I'm suffering from emotional anxiety when they see this reaction, because the discomfort of my sensory sensitivities triggers an instinctive, physiological "fight or flight" response.

Some fabrics feel like sandpaper, with angry fire ants crawling up and down the seams and biting me.

I deal with this by carefully choosing clothes--I don't wear fabrics that hurt me, and I take all the tags out of my shirts.