The Brain Buzz

One of the most unpleasant of the myriad unpleasantries associated with multiple sclerosis, for me anyway, is what I will call the brain buzz, if only for the sake of alliteration, and at the expense moreover of descriptive accuracy--for you see the phenomenon experienced is really more of a hiss than a buzz, though yet again not so much of a hiss as a hiccough tucked somewhere within the electrical pulsations at work within the gray blob otherwise known as my brain (itself more blob-like I think than most).


This, happily enough, is not a common nor an ongoing symptom, but one which arises at its own pleasure, whenever it will; and is, I believe, something that accompanies an active state of MS--a warning whisper, a rumor of war. It has become according to past experience my own diagnostic tool for identifying a relapse, just as reliable as the MRI, though much cheaper.

This buzz/hiss/pulse--this heavy breathing in my brain--comes along also with a sense of light-headedness and disorientation above the norm, and also vague nausea. Whenever this hits, I wonder first off what I can do about it, then remember that there is nothing to be done but to wait. It does finally go away on its own. So far, anyway.

I wonder if anyone else has this. It does seem that MS makes its attempt in each person to present an original character--so as to make each of us feel special, I think; and also to confuse doctors and frustrate timely diagnosis--and yet there are some common threads to be agreed upon--numbness and tingling in the extremities, for instance; fatigue; imbalance.

But how about the brain buzz in particular? Anyone out there feel me?