Astrogator's Logs

(Shropshire Lad XXXII, A. E. Houseman)

The readers of my blog may have noticed I’m posting far less frequently than I used to.

Some of it is watching the same old endlessly repeat. More discouraging shenanigans in [fill in country/community name]. More Republithug tantrums about “entitlements” except for those of millionaire donors. More breathless pseudoscience from futurists, transhumorists, spiritualists. More concessions demanded by/for fundamentalists of all stripes. More mediocre fiction touted as “fresh” and “groundbreaking” by people who haven’t read beyond Internet freebies.

Some of it is my transition into the infrastructure-free sphere of self-employment. This included taking leave of what was and taking stock of what might yet be. Prominent in the latter is a successor to The Other Half of the Sky, as well as writing and publishing more of my own fiction. Not that I foresee the latter becoming any easier: my fiction stubbornly remains middlebrow genre fusion with non-standard mythic/cultural references. The pile of unpublished work clogs the creative pipes, making it hard for me to write new stories.

Some of it is my fibromyalgia, acquired as the aftermath to the shock of a cancer operation that went awry. The surgeon hit an artery and I nearly died of blood loss. It’s also possible that I suffered a minor stroke, because I had a two-month period of profound loss of both memory and fine motor control. I, the bookworm with Velcro recall, couldn’t remember my parents’ phone number or the contents of a book page I had just struggled through. After a black hole of panic, my memory and coordination more or less returned carrying fibromyalgia along with them. That was a bit more than six years ago. I’ve dragged the relentless pain with me since, a jagged iron ball that slams into me with each step I take.

Fibromyalgia is a misnomer that attempts to describe the fact that FM sufferers feel like they’ve being hit non-stop all over with a meat tenderizing hammer. In fact the disarray is entirely in the head: something mis-sensitizes the sensory processing apparatus, so that normal input is interpreted as pain; for some reason this sets up a positive feedback loop that increases the amplitude of the incorrect response. People get FM after a car accident, after a difficult childbirth – generally after a shock. It’s the whole-body equivalent of phantom limb pain. But whereas the latter can be ameliorated by using a low-tech yet often effective technique called Ramachandran’s mirror, there’s no similar solution for FM.

As a result, FM sufferers hurt even when they don’t move, even when they sleep – which means they don’t get the length and quality of sleep needed for full restoration. They become stiff, clumsy, lethargic, forgetful, slow-witted; they often gain enormous amounts of weight because it’s hard to move, which brings its own raft of troubles: heart problems, diabetes, certain types of cancer. And since sensitized neurons are not visible, FM diagnosis is solely by exclusion after batteries upon batteries of metabolic and neurological tests. Most often and unless they persist, FM sufferers are dismissed as hysterical (sic) hypochondriacs, a conclusion made even more convenient and acceptable by the statistical fact that most are women.

The “treatments” for FM – if they can be called that – are drugs that tamp down the nervous system (anti-epileptics, benzodiazepines, SSRI/SNRI antidepressants) or that decrease pain perception; one of the latter is tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, the primary active component of marijuana. The casual off-label use of the first group at the drop of a hat has turned people into obese zombies, the placebo-vs-real-effect issues of the SSRIs have never been resolved (let alone the suicidal tendencies they facilitate) and long-term use of benzodiazepines is known to cause irreversible cognitive damage. THC appears to have far fewer and milder side effects, low addictiveness and no withdrawal issues. Unfortunately, it has run into the savage prudery of many societies, including the US.

Several US states have legalized medical marijuana but the federal government has zealously prosecuted any attempts to follow through (on the other hand, the NRA continues untrammeled and unopposed after each mass shooting). One recent state to legalize medical marijuana was Massachusetts – but the dogged refusal of the federal government to countenance legalization of a substance that causes zero violence means that the doctors in Massachusetts have no idea how to prescribe effective doses and are very resistant to the concept. Like abortion, this legalization will most likely remain just a gesture on paper.

I was given benzodiazepines and anti-epileptics briefly when I had an acute episode of neuralgia after a dental procedure. That eventually subsided. Their effects on me made me decide to never use them again – and my reading on the effects of SSRIs/SNRIs made me determined to never let them anywhere near my neurons. So I’m ignoring my FM as much as it will let me. However, if medical marijuana goes past the stage of in-name-only, I may well argue one of my doctors into letting me have a try. I have no illusions it will placate the shadow twin that has taken ownership of my neurons much, or for long. But it will be good to remember for fleeting moments what it’s like not to feel pain.

Related Posts:

It’s All in Your Head

The Hunter

Of Federal Research Grants and Dancing Bears

On Being a Ghost

Images: Frida Kahlo (who knew pain intimately), Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird; one of the Lewis chess set queens.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Biology & Culture, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.