why do we get itches? – Extreme Speed Zone

Question: why do we get itches?
- Keywords:
  body,
  itch,
  sense,
  skin
Asked by flissboo to Claire on 25 Jun 2013.
- Claire Lee answered on 25 Jun 2013:
  
  Oh, interesting question! I had to go and look this one up.
  
  Basically an itch is just a signal sent from your skin to your brain through your nerves. When something lands on your skin and starts to irritate it (but doesn’t cause straight-out pain) your brain gets a message that this is happening. Your brain’s reaction is to send a message to your hand to tell it to get rid of whatever the something is because it could harm us – that is why we scratch.
  
  This is very different to pain, because our natural response to pain is to leave it alone

Question: why do we get itches?