Doc's Cluster Headache Journal

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Meat Gone Bad

For several days after my last post, I was doing reasonably well and was encouraged that I was on an upswing. But unfortunately yesterday I had a very bad day I felt I needed to write about briefly.

First of all, I want to note that since I am trying very hard to get more rest and set aside my phobia of sleep I went to bed quite early and slept for close to eight hours which is pretty unusual for me.

I woke up with a headache, which have become so common I hardly notice them anymore. The last couple of weeks I seem to have about a 50-50 chance of waking up in pain. The headache pain was mild and disorienting all throughout the day and evening mostly non-distinct but sometimes settling in the cluster specific area of my head but more often feeling like migraine pain.

The more disturbing symptom was the feeling of stupidity and disorientation. I'm pretty sure I've described this feeling before, but it was very pronounced yesterday. The overall effect is like and out of brain experience, it's literally like someone has removed part of my cognitive ability surgically, it's still somehow remotely connected, but I have to search for it each time I want to use it, like the evil imaginary surgeon is playing a hideous game of "keep away" with parts of my brain. It's very unpleasant.

Usually I experience this during cluster cycles and so often I would describe it as having a cluster headache without the pain. But I don't know, maybe it's a separate effect entirely. Maybe it's a headache aura. From what I've read, when people start seeing spots before they get migraines it's because parts of their brain are having little malfunctions and the chemical corrections these malfunctions are eventually what causes the migraine. So, knowing that I have learning disabilities and sleeping problem since I was a kid that don't seem to be purely pulmonary, A slightly disturbing question arises... What brain malfunction is causing my headaches?

Of course that's the $24,000 question that no one seems to know yet.

Well, I don't want to make this long post about comorbidity, and everything I feel it's wrong with me. But I wonder sometimes if deep within my brain if there isn't a little messed up bit of meat that is causing a lot of problems for me.