Distracted Medicating and my Brain

Last night, as is my habit, I picked up my pill minder and carefully scanned the labels before taking my bedtime meds. Monday a.m… that seems right, I remember thinking to myself. Maybe I can blame my distraction on the fact that I was preparing for Monday (by getting my gym clothes together and setting the coffee pot on auto). Perhaps in my mental preparations, my mind had jumped a bunch of time zones ahead to morning. Unfortunately, it was still 100% Sunday evening in the corporeal world. That is how right before bed I ended up taking all my medications that have stimulant properties. That’s a big oops! for more than one reason.

First, the obvious: major sleep disruption. Even though I fell asleep initially, my brain woke up in the middle of the night and started obsessing about some challenge in my jewelry making. At 3:30 a.m. I gave up lying in bed and dragged my sleepy sleepless self upstairs to my craft room where I made two pieces of jewelry, completely unrelated to my restless ruminations. The pieces I made in the wee hours still look nice in the light of day, if you were wondering. Though I did have to fix one of them.

Secondly, I wasn’t even supposed to take my meds this morning because they could affect my test results: I am having a qEEG later today. That is a quantitative EEG test, a brain imaging technique that peer reviewed use to assess how the brain is functioning in various areas. The results are compared to a statistically “normal” brain of the same age. For instance, a study of how the sense of self shows up in the brains of depressed people uses the technique. Another study  using the technique is particularly relevant to me because it examines a treatment for Post Concussion Syndrome.

The treatment using the data is from the qEEG is neurofeedback, a technique of retraining the brain. This will be the next steps for me, depending my qEEG results. The therapist who will be doing neurofeedback explained that the test is also diagnostic, so it’ll be interesting to see what shows up.

The treatment looks promising, but I have to admit, disconcerting to imagine directly stimulating my brain. Then again, all our senses stimulate the brain…still weird.  I also wonder what the picture of my brain functioning will look like. We will all have to wait to find out.

 

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