The journal Schweizerische Medizinische Wochenschrift. Journal Suisse de Médecine has put together a list of diseases whose first symptom is an itch.

So the next time you feel the urge to scratch, consider that you just might have one of these:

• Hodgkin's disease
• primary sclerosing cholangitis
• polycythemia vera
• multiple myeloma
• cholestasis, including primary biliary cirrhosis, drug-induced, pregnancy-related, and extrahepatic cholestasis
• focal neurologic diseases such as brain tumours, cerebral infarctions and multiple sclerosis
• Aids