Caught myself scratching again

Caught myself scratching again around 2am last night, woke up with my nails already dug into the back of my knee before I even realized I was awake, and when I checked this morning there was a thin line of blood dried along the crease that I hadn’t noticed until the shower stung. Third night this week it’s happened, not the first time overall, I’ve had patches come and go since college but this flare has been sitting on my shins and the backs of my knees for almost 2 months now, and it only seems to get loud at night, like my skin waits until I’m asleep to start up, becuase during the day it’s just a background itch I can mostly tune out while I’m at the shop or getting through emails. Keep going back and forth on whether it’s the detergent I switched to in August (the one that was supposed to be gentler, go figure), or just the dry air starting up as it gets colder, or honestly maybe neither, maybe it’s just doing its own thing regardless of what I change. The part that gets to me isn’t even the itching, it’s waking up already mid-scratch with no memory of starting, like my body made a decision without asking me, and then lying there afterward doing the math on whether I broke skin badly enough to scar or get infected before I even have the energy to get up and check. Been trying to keep my nails short and sleep in old cotton gloves some nights, which helps some nights and does absolutely nothing on others, no pattern I can find to when it works. Also been trying to pick my guitar back up in the evenings instead of scrolling right before bed, thought it might calm things down some, and it’s nice honestly, but it hasn’t touched the itching at all, figures. 3 nights out of 7 this week. Started tracking it in the budget notebook I just started keeping again, right next to grocery totals, which feels like a strange thing to log but there it is. Just tired in a way coffee doesn’t fix anymore.