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In the early Summer of Nineteen Eighty-Six, I got home from my
Saturday Computer Room Monitoring & Tutoring job and ordered a
pizza with a bottle of soda as I settled down to watch evening shows.
When they arrived I ate and, about a half hour later, my head
exploded in pain.
Soon after I'd gotten to Colorado, I'd started to have sudden onset
headaches. They would start out of the blue and throb for the next
few hours until finally fading away. Yet, as headaches are deemed
common place for people, according to frequent ads for over the
counter medication to treat them, it never occurred to me to see
a doctor for them and I just endured it unless I had the chance to
take an aspirin. As I would come to fully understand later in life,
one should only treat the symptom while still addressing the
cause. All too often in life we treat the symptom but don't
worry about the cause, even if it's ever worsening. Like the
leak in the roof, putting a bucket underneath it doesn't fix the
leak, it just addresses the obvious sign of the problem while the
cause continues to fester.
For just shy of three years since I'd moved to Colorado, I'd been
getting these sudden onset headaches and just addressing the pain and
never wondering about what triggered it. But this time, the
throbbing pain in my head was so intense I was sure it was going to
pop and leave my brains splattered all around. So I decided to go to
the emergency room.
Once there, they saw me quickly and when I told them of the pain and
intense pulsing, they checked my blood pressure and were disturbed by
the result, with the high-end above one seventy. They decided they
should check the pressure in all of my limbs: The other arm and both
legs. The results were pretty similar although growing with each
check, with the last limb the high number had made it to one eighty.
I don't remember if they gave me anything for it, or just observed me
for a couple of hours rechecking my pressure, but the doctor did come
in and ask if I had recently eaten anything. I'd mentioned the pizza
& soda and he asked me if I had a history of having these sudden
onset headaches after having one or both of theses. Thinking back,
this was when I realized that these headaches most often happened
after having a soda and I told him so. He asked if I'd had that
problem all my life and I told him I hadn't, only in recent years.
He suspected that the industry change from sugar to corn sweetener
was triggering my problem and recommended I try drinking diet soda,
or first check the label and make sure I got one of the few brands
still using sugar and see if that put an end to my sudden headaches.
If not, then I should have a follow-up appointment with
my doctor about addressing my blood pressure spikes. I remained at
the emergency room for a while longer as I considered this and the
subsequent checks of my blood pressure found it moving back down into
the normal range. I was released to go back home.
I started checking bottles at work and at stores: Sure enough most of
the major brands of soda were now all corn syrup based. I checked
the diet sodas and at the time saccharin was the gold standard for
them, with a nice little health warning printed on the cap of each
bottle. I started with the diet versions of the sodas I liked and
the headaches didn't come back. For the the first time in quite a
while I was headache free for months on end.
Unfortunately it didn't make my joint pains any better, though they
hadn't gotten worse either, they just persisted at the same level.
Since being bizarrely dumped by the joint specialist doctor I hadn't
seen anyone about them as, by this point, I had endured the aches in
my knuckles and knees for a year and a half. After the emergency
room visit, I did make a follow-up visit with my mother's primary
doctor and when I saw him and reported that the headaches had not
returned, and my blood pressure level was normal at the office, he
decided we didn't need to worry about ongoing blood pressure issues.
He asked if there was anything else he could help me with and I
mentioned the ever persistent joint pains that the specialist hadn't
been able to help with and jaw-droppingly enough he told me those
would likely go away once I found myself a girl friend...
I had no idea what to make of that, at the time, but with subsequent
years of reflection I realized by having the same primary doctor as
my mother, it was likely the case of her saying things like this
about me to him and then he recycling them as his own thoughts when
seeing me. As the next year and a half came I would fully come to
realize the devastating effect this feedback loop from my mother
would have on my health.
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