Category: chronic unexplained illness

I recently started thinking again about a phenomenon I first experienced at the nadir of my health woes 14 years ago, and several times since. I wondered briefly about it each time it happened, but was too beleaguered and distracted to dwell on it. To wit: on several occasions I developed noticeable symptoms over a short period of time that were visible to others. Twice I developed slurred speech, stammering, and word loss. For a while my memory was so bad I couldn't repeat a telephone number back to you or remember articles I had edited two months before. I also once gained 21 pounds in six weeks (a 15% weight gain). Not one person ever mentioned any of this to me. Not my closest friends, not family members, not…

During the years I was figuring out the celiac-nutritional deficiencies-liver damage thang, I had a few revelations that probably otherwise wouldn't have been visited unto me until later in life. Several of these were a result of aphasia episodes, wherein my speech became slow and halting and would occasionally just stop mid-sentence. 1. People listen to the pattern of your voice before they listen to what you say. When the aforementioned speech weirdness caused me to break off in mid-sentence, coworkers and friends would laugh as if I'd said something funny, even though I hadn't and even though I clearly had not finished my sentence. Maybe they just thought I was making a half-assed attempt at comic timing. Several years later I discovered with a certain acquaintance that when I,…