for easily over three weeks now—perhaps four—i've had a headache. it waxes and wanes, doesn't really ever go away; also mostly <6 on the pain scale, and has only morphed into full-blown migraines a handful of times, so for the most part, even though it is admittedly a little alarming, i'm able to be reasonably functional. and i have to be: the thesis isn't going to write itself after all. but it is—naturally—extremely uncomfortable. sucks to dedicate 12–17% of my bandwidth to pain every single waking minute. i also suspect that it—and by it, i mean either the bandwidth reduction or the actually physiological root of the headaches—is reducing my reading comprehension. in fact, i think my general brain acuity is on the fritz: my code is frequently buggy; i've let more conceptual errors slip into work this past month than i'm comfortable with; and i hate having to ask Claude sensemaking questions. my last straw has been had! the pain i can live with—i have some experience in this area. but shitty cognition? unacceptable. also untenable. who am i if i can't do the things i want to do?? hellow??
thus, i have started noodling around under the hood for answers and fixes: unstructuredly eliminating possible diet triggers, trying to slip in more silly little walks in the sun, more water, that sort of thing. the hottest new contestant on the elimination block this week, sadly, is sugar. now, i am a sugar gremlin—always have been. despite being aware keenly of the many studies of sugar dependence—and blah blah blah similarities to cocaine in brain effects and oh shut up!—i have been steadfast in my devotion to the deliciousness. there is, after all, an evolutionary love story playing out between man and sugar. who i am to question, let alone, subvert it?
but. i must quit sugar for a while now. for science. this reduces the choices of caffeine sources available to me because those two are fiercely intertwined for me. for what is a chai if not sweet? further, the home stash of coffee is a deep roast and i simply shan't be bothered with making new purchases at this time. fake sugar splenda shit gives me migraines; zero benefits there then. and thus begins my green tea era. genmaicha, which i picked up out of idle curiousity at H-mart, is actually a vibe because it has roasted rice in it! it is supposed to, for this reason, be low(er-ish) caffeine, which i dont like, but it smells a little like popcorn while being brewed, which i do like. and it's great unsweetened! many cups shall be had!
it'll be exactly a month tomorrow of quitting sugar (and all glycemic foods generally). even though we do not know what’s going on, i can cautiously claim, i think, that things are a little better than they were last month! i do still have some occasional all-day headaches but these are getting spottier now, more intermittent—and very few spill over into migraine territory. got a lot of bloodwork done a few weeks ago: everything is literally in the healthiest range(s) possible except my inflammation markers, which are moderately high. why? nobody knows (yet). but this isn’t as bad as it could be; these same markers were six times the normal limit last summer when i had the horrible rash episode. the lesson from this past decade of being unreasonably unwell is that however bad things get, they could always be worse! this is both a blessing and a curse.
anyway, we’ve scheduled some more tests for mid-May. yay for more data points, etc., but i’m beginning to see once again that this is something i must deal with on my own. my PCP is not inclined to offer hypotheses or help medically beyond prescribing pain relief or beta blockers. so my two leading hypotheses after a whole month of fiddling, tweaking, documenting, and testing are (a) stress and (b) some kind of insulin-triggered immunity response (i don't know what this could be and honestly, at the moment, i cannot be arsed to care).
this tracks because general anxiety around how unmoored I've been and continue to be has been very high—symptomatically even—since last winter. and of course, i have in my rear-view mirror the unforgettable four years of crushing, debilitating fibromyalgia, which supposedly was brought on by the overwhelm and panic that naturally occurs when you let an ADHD gremlin stay alive for three decades without intervention or accommodation. the point is: i get the part where my body does not physiologically know how to handle anxiety without sharp somatic—often immunity-implicating—responses. it’s cool, girl. we’re in this together. living is hard, etc. but this vile response to sugar?? to carbs??? why am i being given these battles? hate!!! and thus, every week or so over the past month, i’ve been doing a smöl “test” (only for science, obviously) where i’ll check if a tiny piece of, e.g., milk chocolate or toast will hurt me. and yep, they sure as fuck do! i had a too-sweet salad dressing the week before last and was immediately—visibly!—inflammed (shout out to eyelids—mine swell up quite rapidly; very nifty diagnostic tool). sleep deprivation hurts too, i suppose. so i’ve been trying to get ~eight hours every night, but with mixed success. then again, this is why god made benzos.
so anyway, for now, we’re staying on course with these conclusions and plans. i’ve really gotten into oatmilk matchas now (dairy is evil too). who am I becoming?
this week's i find that god forbid i eat one(1)* fried peanut. immediate headache. why, why am i in food hell?
* ok i ate like 10 but ugh
more follow-up blood tests: my inflammation markers are back to behaving, baby! I still won’t let myself have any sugar or glycemic foods of any kind out of trauma but at least I’m not in constant pain anymore.
