Why I'm nervous about my nervous system

On the scariest adverse reaction to medication I've ever had

Hello from Anchorage, Alaska, where the sun is shining, the views are beautiful, the moose are moose-ing, and I am nervous.

Tomorrow, I will have the first of what might be 30+ nerve block treatments, mostly on my stellate ganglion, but also on other nerve clusters in my body.¹

I’m afraid because maybe anyone would be, but I’m particularly afraid because of a recent adverse reaction to medication from which I still haven’t recovered. The experience reminded me how unpredictable and fragile my nervous system is. And it left me locked in a “paradoxical response,” as my psychiatrist phrased it…by which I mean: I now take Adderall to help me sleep and Ativan to help me focus.

Illustration by me (plz be gentle, i’m an amateur! teaching myself to draw is my newest bed-bound hobby, now that my vision problems have made reading such a challenge)

What happened was this:

I had traveled to a different city for autonomic nervous system testing. While there, I got one infection and then another, the second one more sudden and serious, and it sent me to the ER. IV antibiotics and an overnight stay were followed by take-home antibiotics that caused symptoms that brought me back to the ER a few days later, where the medical team stopped the antibiotics, treated the symptoms, and ran tests and did imaging to be safe.

At the end of my nearly 12-hour visit, the nurse asked if my headache had returned. Yes, I said. Could they give me medicine for it?

The attending doctor prescribed Reglan, a medicine I’d never heard of or received. Pills to pick up at the pharmacy tomorrow, and for that night, an IV dose just before discharge.

The nurse mixed the Reglan with a tiny amount of saline and pushed it through my IV, then detached the IV. I was free to leave.

That’s when the nightmare began.