A few summers ago, I had a mild sunburn that turned into some kind of bizarre-ass sun allergy. It felt like a colony of fire ants crawling underneath my skin where the burn was, and the pain was so constant and intense that I was ready to [REDACTED] myself into a moving [REDACTED]. Aloe and lidocaine helped the surface of the burn itself, but not the histamine reaction underneath it. Before we figured out that it was a histamine reaction (and could be treated with just Benadryl or some such), I got into my partner's stash of post-birth pain meds from a few years before. One Vicodin completely got rid of the fire-ants-in-my-body sensation, but only for about 8 hours. For a day or two before the burn healed on its own, that was seriously the only way that I could sleep or function like a normal human.

When it happened again a year later (I didn't have as much sunscreen on as I thought I did), that was when I had the "hey, this is probably histamine" thought and tried dosing with the OTC allergy stuff. That worked, and I didn't end up needing to go on a three-day codeine bender. Personal opioid crisis averted, I guess?