Headaches and Dissociative Identity Disorder

As my wife and I have traveled together to heal her of dissociative identity disorder, headaches have been part of the healing process. That seems to be typical for all d.i.d. sufferers. For six years I have watched my wife suffer from massive headaches each time we welcomed a new girl into our lives. And then when Tina, the last girl, joined us, she seemed to take the number and duration of the headaches to a new level. All the other girls would cause debilitating headaches for about a week once they decided to permanently join us on the outside. Not Tina. For her, every step forward was accompanied by massive headaches. Each time she made a step away from her total seclusion and toward the other girls, everyone paid for it with debilitating headaches for days on end.

 

I’ve talked about these headaches in the past on this blog. Since I’m not a scientist, I can only describe them in laymen’s terms. To me the headaches always seem to be like restarting an old engine that has frozen from neglect. Once the engine is started, it sputters and smokes and shakes for a few minutes until the movement blows out the oxidation and lubricates the parts. Then the motor will quiet down and begin to purr like normal.

 

And I think that’s what’s happening with the girls. Each time a girl moves to “reconnect” the neural pathways between her and the others, the brain protests, massively. From disuse, those pathways have atrophied, and they are NOT happy when the girls decide to re-establish them and begin communicating with each other. Tina, simply, was so completely sequestered from the others that EVERY step forward for her was met with resistance from their brain.

 

When I described this one day to my uncle who is a registered pharmacist, but who also loves studying natural remedies, he suggested that 5HTP might help with my wife’s massive headaches. The first time we tried it, we gave her 2, 50mg capsules. Well the headaches were gone! But she was nearly knocked out for the rest of the day and had to cancel on a women’s meeting she had at church that night. So the next time she tried it, she only took one capsule. That didn’t completely eradicate the headache, but it definitely helped. Plus, it didn’t turn her into a zombie and so she was still able to function the rest of the day.

 

I’m not a doctor and I do NOT want to overstep my limitations on this blog. But I did want to pass along this information in case anyone is interested. I do know you need to be aware of possible side effects if you try 5HTP for the notorious d.i.d. headaches. One is it is known to enhance your dreams. I had been having dreamless sleep for years and it immediately restarted my dreaming when I tried it. But it caused the girls to have more vivid/scary dreams. My uncle said it can also build up in your system and so you may need to take a week off from it from time to time.

 

So my wife’s headaches are not gone, and she still takes regular OTC medicine like Alieve and Excedrine most days, but 5HTP definitely seems to help when the headaches become debilitating and she doesn’t have to worry about driving or attending functions if it makes her too drowsy.

 

Blessings,

 

Sam, I Am