I found the title phrase in the Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria.

Why was I looking? Well, the last half of yesterday and the early hours of today, I was visited again by a familiar cluster of debilitating physical symptoms, the main one being a bodyfuck headache that seems to amplify my left-shoulder pain, and seems to be kicked off by stress and certain states of mind.

I’m aware this whole discussion is crap as far as writing. It’s a spill it’s a spill I’m indulging.

These episodes were much more common when the stress in my life was more acute. At times I’ve thought they were purely psychosomatic, and that very low stress levels would mean I would be free of them completely. But I don’t think that’s quite true. Yesterday I dealt with the unpleasantness surrounding the shed and all, but it wasn’t really that stressful on the surface. I was broke down bad anyway. Big doses of naproxen didn’t touch it. The scotch seemed to make it a little better, but not much. Trying to sleep early didn’t work because the pain got it the way of sleep.

I sank down into a warm tub in the wee hours and kept reading. Soaking, I gradually started to … butt-thunder vigorously; and that fixed me up finally–afterwards, in the dawn, I slept.

Brain-gut, brain-gut axis.

I’ve gone looking for answers about this many times. Migraines don’t really match up. ‘Celiac disease’ neither. The closest thing I can find to an explanation, and still an imperfect one, is ‘fibromyalgia’, but I’m not really sure this word means anything. Yes I’ve got pain in the fibers, especially neck and shoulder muscles, but this too is just a description of one symptom, and not any kind of diagnosis, much less a cure.

I think there’s a few things I need to try, in addition to staying hydrated, which I do to the tune of a gallon a day when I’m free to.

One. Finding a sort of fiber that works for me and increasing my regular intake of it.

Two. Experimenting with the absolute rejection of gluten.

Three. Walking, out into the semi-natural, for some chunk of an hour every day.

Four. A bathtub of my own up there, as a refuge of last resort, as it was last night.

I’m inserting it all into the lists.

Forgive me for the digression. It’s what’s locally important somehow, as the last month rolls.