Schrödinger’s Migraine? skeptics, stress & serotonin.

this is a decidedly curious ‘migraine’.

it has been about 72 hours now, give or take. i could call something at the start of the week a prodrome. or not. i could just as easily have been having one of those days.

at this point it could be any number of things gone awry in these here stormy neurological seas. you see, whilst migraines are primarily mediated by the serotonin levels in the brain — those ‘happy’ chemicals strike again — they really aren’t all that consistent in the ways they can present… even in those whose baseline neuro functioning is far more stable than mine ever has been.

first, we have nausea which is unusual enough for me. and to add to the strange it improves when i eat. … huh? that’s a new one on me. it’s possible i’m not eating as much as i think i am over time because my memory is pretty stuffed right now, so maybe that’s hunger? but it still seems odd. if this is caused by something viral it might make some sense, perhaps but then i should have a fever, which i don’t seem to.

then the pounding headache and fatigue which seem to be bouncing off the “huge spasms” in my neck, to quote my masseuse (bless her heart since i am a pain as a client. have to leave my undershirt, and a pair of pants on… she has even taken to mentioning she’s leaving the door open a little, which is really sweet since i haven’t even said anything).

anyway, all that jazz is fine and par for the course except that it responds better to reading than to medication. yeah.
odd treatment, that. isn’t it? if i concentrate on a book, the pain/nausea etc. goes away.

am writing this week off as a lost cause. it’s going in the cold case files because i just don’t get it. now, it’s possible it’s what they call a ’stress response’. helpfully ambiguous, as ever, oh mighty morphing medical establishment.

somewhere between Monday and Tuesday things did feel a little off… like someone was playing a vigorous match of footy with my brains for balls. so it’s plausible, perhaps even likely that this isn’t ‘just’ a migraine.

what on earth that means it actually is, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. and one to which i’d really prefer not to pay that much attention so much as have it magically fix itself in the way that i am hoping it will if i leave off stress-inducing activities for a sufficient period of time.

beyond self-imposed isolation i’m really not sure what to do. i have me a stack of books i’ve been meaning to read, and i’m working through those… also a packet of oreos.

and if all else fails i’ll turn off the lights and watch DVDs I won’t remember about things I’m not all that interested in until the world goes away or something, anything, shifts.