Thursday, April 30, 2009

Dopamine, Dopamine, Dopamine

My brain's life long craving for dopamine has finally run out of options.

Meanwhile, I keep intending to lay out the whole history of that battle online to see if there is any doctor out there who has ever seen a case like mine - and who might know if there is anything that can be done about it.

The reality today, though, is that the last drug that worked well enough for me to be something resembling normal stopped working so long ago, I can't even recall when that was.

The last drug that did anything to help me maintain a level of 'alertness' finally stopped last summer. Next, a couple weeks ago, the last drug that even kept me awake stopped working.

And then when one drug yesterday seemed to be able to keep me awake, it turns out to spiked my blood pressure by over a hundred points within hours of my taking it. Or at least that seems to be how high by blood pressure jumped when I was out last night based on my blood pressure today that many hours after taking the drug. My actual memories of last night, though, are ... shall we say.... close to non-existant.

And the hope that I would be able to somehow activate my 'fight or flight' syndrome and wrestle my way out of my problems - as was predicted by Thelma Moss of UCLA back in 1966 - now seems to be a hopeless one as finding the right sparring partners at the same time my body is injury free enough to grapple, seems to be an impossible equation.

So this post is just to goad me into finally laying out the whole story of this dopamine battle in the hopes that some doctor somewhere - will have treated someone like me and have some idea of what to do next. And... hopefully... I can stay awake enough over the next week to do that.

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