Brain Zaps

 

I have no idea what other people call them, but I call them brain zaps. I get them when I’m tired, and I’m tired a lot. I have insomnia and since I’ve stopped taking Ambien I can count on not sleeping a couple nights a week. I lie in bed and as the night passes without sleep, my brain starts firing off electrical meteor showers. They make noise only in my head; I can only describe it as the noise you hear on TV shows when a car whizzes by a, horn blowing one loud blast as it comes and goes at warp speed. It kind of feels like that too. Sudden and scary.

They don’t just happen at night. I have found that I sometimes get them (when I’m tired) during the daytime if I turn my head suddenly or look up quickly. There’s really no predicting with 100% certainty when they’ll happen, so it’s almost always a little gift: “surprise!” 

My doctor gets this puzzled look on his face when I mention my brain zaps, like he’s never heard the expression before. I guess he’s never googled “brain zaps”. I have, and I am definitely not the only person in the world that is bothered by them.  I think it may be the Cymbalta that I take for fibromyalgia, because this class of drug gets mentioned a lot by other people who get zapped frequently. Maybe it’s kind of like our own little lobotomy going on in our heads. That’s not a pleasant thought, now is it?

If it is the Cymbalta, I’m certainly not going to stop taking it to stop the zaps. Cymbalta (and I swear I don’t work for the manufacturer!) has truly made my fibromyalgia a great deal more bearable.  My doctor mentioned switching me to Lyrica but I declined. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, my grandmother always said. And have you seen the list of side effects with Lyrica? Looks a whole lot worse than fibromyalgia to me. I’ll pass, thanks.

I guess there’s a whole lot worse things that could be happening to my brain than my brain zaps.  I really could need a lobotomy…