No- not the PINGS!

Posted byMurfomurfPosted inUncategorized

Anyone familiar with the pings will instantly recognise what I’m referring to; the rest should be bloody glad they have NO idea.

After absolutely years of never having any pings, I got them back yesterday while enduring this strange stomach condition where I got all swollen (others might call it bloated?) after a seemingly normal meal (dining out). When I was younger I had a few of these episodes and named them “stomach migraines” because they felt like the ones I experienced in my head since the age of 10 until I was 32, when they left forever.

The current episode is nearly over and the pain and swelling have departed. I just have these abominable pings which I first experienced when starting SSRI anti depressants many years ago and which occur if I reduce my dose too much when feeling good. These pings seem to come from right inside my head- some call them brain-zaps – and the worst ones make my eardrums crackle and vibrate to every sound, even the softest flutter of leaves in a breeze. However, this time they are not making me cry and run away because I know they are temporary and I am not deeply depressed.

In the past the pings were unendurable when I sat next to a friend of mine at dinner, who has an incredibly breathy/spitty way of speaking (sorry if you read this). The eardrums could not recover between one burst of her speech and the next and eventually I would crash out of the place crying uncontrollably, sometimes just collapsing, unable to make any progress with my legs. The most abysmal sensation and one that could make anyone want to die on the spot. Not kill themselves – just wish fervently for instant annihilation, being unable to take any action to bring it on.breathy

The congestion or whatever it is in my abdominal area must use up all my free serotonin to produce the pings and I am not sure if it is the pain or the congestive process that uses it. I think it might have some relationship to the flow of enzymes and whatever – bile etc – that help digest food as I don’t feel nauseated or chunderous, nor do I get “the trots”. Whatever the cause, folic acid tablets and cutting out excess sugars, any oils and fats for a few days stops the episode from continuing. All I get now is the PTSD from the pings. Gee, thanks, Nature.

Anyone in the known universe get this stomach thing? I would have experienced about a dozen episodes since I was 20, so not all that frequent. But VERY unpleasant.

Published by Murfomurf

I am someone with far too many interests to do them all every week. This is a personal blog with no particular theme- just what I want to write. I might not LOOK very interesting but you may be rewarded for taking some time to discover me! I feel as though I am about 25 or 30 and would have liked to have had a rewarding job until I gave up searching in March 2015. My ideal job would be doing research and service development in Public Health, but meanwhile I finished an MPH and I’ll do a PhD if I have to. This blog is mainly about my life and thoughts. I'm passionate about all sorts of topics that capture my attention from news, current affairs and friends’ lives. As a bit of background: when I was a kid, I was good at everything except team sport and in the looks department; I didn’t achieve great height either. These days I am deemed not to be good enough at anything to be employed, although I used to be a uni lecturer and health researcher. My blogging tends to have at least a wry note, if not a completely Pythonesque aspect! Since I find blogging therapeutic, I sometimes touch on my experiences with Major Depression, but I won’t drag you down. My posts tend to contain what I THINK, and hopefully some of what I do. Although I’ve been pretty much unemployed for 4 years, and only semi-employed for 7 years before that, I still blog about the topics of my old work. My favourite work topics are mental health, eating disorders, depression, body “image” and public health. Im a strong supporter of equity. You’ll find I’m fairly leftie in a 70s Hippie kind of way, but without the stars in my eyes or the Little Red Book in my pocket. My main mission in life is achieving some sort of “fairness”.

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