Suffering Succotash! Its a Scintillating Scotoma!

The day after Christmas, at around noon, I saw my first one of these. 

It's called a scintillating scotoma, and it precedes classic migraines, developing from the center of the visual field outwards over the course of several minutes. A more general term used for the visual effect is a "migraine aura". 

I saw the edges of the scotoma, drawn in hash marks above, as green and yellow sparkling lights on a dark field, pulsating and well...scintillating. 

It's thought that the visual disturbance is caused by a seizure-like event in the occipital lobe, where vision is perceived.  The cells become strongly electrically excited, and that soon exhausts the neurons by altering the ionic balance between extracellular and intracellular space. This results in cellular depression.  

Probably, the sparkly, scintillating part of the visual effect is caused by the excited cells, a wave that spreads and grows, and the dark part left in the center are the cells that have become exhausted and depressed. It's really cool that we can actually see that when it happens in the visual cortex. 

For me, the visual effect happened only on the right side of my field of vision, which means it was the left hemisphere of my occipital lobe that was experiencing this "spreading depression", as it is called. 

Luckily, the headache that came after was mainly in my left temple, and was pretty mild compared to my initial fears. I took some ibuprofen as soon as I figured out what the heck was going on, and massaged the acupressure point in my left eyebrow, which was very tender.

As neat as it was to physically see a cortical event that did not corresponded to any outside sensory stimulus, I hope I never see it again. 

Yeast Diet

Oh noes! My yeast infection came back in late December. I was really hoping it was gone for good, but the microscope doesn't lie. And the microscope told me it was back. With a vengeance.

I decided to see a naturopathic physician (N.D.) about the recurrence. She suggested I start by eliminating added sugars from my diet. The idea is that if you get yeast infections again and again (as I seem to be doing), the yeast is systemic in your body, living in the digestive tract and other places. So even when you clear the yeast out of the vagina, it is only a matter of time til they re-populate. Since yeast eat sugars, by cutting added sugar out of my diet, I am hoping to starve the yeast out of my body. (If just cutting added sugar does not work, I can try more extreme diets, like no sugar period and no foods with yeast, but let's take this one step at a time). In addition, the N.D. gave me some high potency probiotics to take orally. She says they are higher quality than the kind available in grocery stores. She also asked me to apply the probiotics vaginally until 3 days after the yeast infections goes away. I told her I had successfully treated with boric acid before, and she said she was fine with me using that again, so I am. 

This was my first time seeing an N.D., and I have to say on the whole she gave me a lot of practical advice, mostly stuff that I expected. Unexpectedly, she wanted to do a chiropractic adjustment to my back and give me some cranio-sacral therapy, which she describe as restoring the flow of the cerebrospinal fluid. I've never heard of that before, but while she was doing it, I definitely felt some tension in my gut release. The N.D. took more time with me than any M.D. ever has, and I liked that. I appreciate it when my doctors try to understand me and listen to what I have to say, so I will probably go back for a follow up appointment in 3 months. 

The new no-added-sugar diet is hard.  I ate a lot of sweets over the holidays and started to crave them every day. Now I am trying to satisfy myself by eating more at meals and using a sweet-tasting lip balm.  But for the first three days or so, I've been successful. 

Sty

Health Issue:  Stye or Sty

I got a sty about a week ago.  It really just looks like a red, inflamed bump on my eyelid, just around and above where my eyelashes grow. Every few days, the outer skin layer crusts up and sheds (with my assistance).

 

Styes are blocked oil glands that have become infected by bacteria (usually Staph).  They can occur on the inner rim of the eyelid, or on the outer rim- like mine.

I think I can chalk this infection up as stress-triggered. I got it as I was preparing to give a talk to my department.  I don't typically wear eye makeup, and I don't think it was a hygiene issue.

What to do:


Some of the most sensible advice out there is to lay down and put a warm, wet washcloth over your eyes for a 5-10 minutes a few times a day.  Yet I am busy or stressed out enough that even this simplest of self care seems like a chore, and I have only managed to do it once every other day - which is sad because this would probably help with the stress issue too.  Part of the problem is that the washcloth cools very quickly, and I had to warm it up twice in 10 minutes.

Other people suggest using a warm tea bag.  I think this is a great idea, because I drink tea every morning anyway and I bet the tea bag holds heat longer. So I'm going to start making an effort to use the tea bag in the mornings, and do the washcloth thing before I go to bed.