Am I Manic Today? November 27, 2007

I got out of bed this morning well rested, focused and full of ideas of what I needed to do and how I needed to do them.  How refreshing it was to have motivation after it seemed like I ran out of gasoline a couple of weeks ago.   As I was pouring my obligatory coffee (my morning ritual jump start) I suddenly realized that I was in an unusually good mood for no apparent reason. Then the thought crossed my mind that perhaps I was manic?  Was this my ”new” mania?  Was this the muted euphoria that I would experience from here on out on medicine or was I simply feeling “normal” and the last two weeks were just less energetic? 

We all know that women are cyclical by nature.  Okay, so I have noticed that whenever my estrogen crashes at ovulation and then once again right before the onset of menstruation I get headaches, anxious and/or irritable.   Sounds like PMS, right?  I though I had that for several years.   I suspect that instead of being manic this morning, what I was actually noticing was what it feels like to have more normal brain chemistry.  It turns out that there is a relationship between estrogen and serotonin.  Apparently estrogen keeps the latter from breaking down so quickly.  In effect it acts like a typical anti-depressant by inhibiting or at least slowing down the re-uptake of the feel good neurotransmitter.  But more on that another time.

A Ghost In My House? November 16, 2007

Six years ago I was hospitalized for an entire month.  My daughter, who is now six and thriving, was born ten weeks prematurely.  The placenta had started to pull away which induced me into aggressive contractions at 26 weeks gestation.  The doctors delayed the inevitable for as long as possible by hooking me up to an I.V. drip and basically not letting me move for four weeks.    I came home without her three days after they took her abruptly one morning in the operating room.  They say she was born in 6 minutes, but I don’t remember any of it.   It was in those first nights at home in my own bed that I couldn’t sleep.  I was extremely agitated around 4:00 AM so I got up to go to the sofa in the living room.  As I was drifting off to sleep finally I suddenly felt as though I was being rapidly sucked in to the wall which I was facing.  It was like a black hole.  I guess I screamed or something because my husband came running.  I was afraid to approach the wall or venture to the other side of the wall, which was the laundry room.  My husband had to do the laundry for a couple of days.  I was convinced that I had a spirit of some sort in my house.   For the first time in my life I thought I was going crazy.  I planted St. Benedict medals at every corner of my house which I prayed would exorcise any evil.  After suggesting several times to whatever “it” was to join the other spirits I finally got it to go away.

Years later, I think I finally understand what actually happened to me.   I was given a clue when I went for my usual dental check up.  I was so exhausted from sleep deprivation (insomnia is a common symptom of depression as it turns out) that I started to fall asleep right in the dentist’s chair!  My entire body suddenly jerked so hard that I startled the very nice hygienist, who thought that she had hurt me.  I, on the other hand, thought that I was falling.  We just stared at each other wide-eyed for a few very awkward seconds.  Understanding that this was less than normal I started to look in to the matter.  What I came up with is that what I experience almost every night (according to my husband), is hypnic jerk associated with hypnagogia.   It seems as though it is indirectly related with the neurotransmitters ephenephrin and norephenephrin.