Brain Zaps

 What the hell is a brain zap? I honestly don't even know how to begin... 

So I suffer from this thing that I have started to call brain zaps. It is the weirdest thing I have ever experienced, and despite seeing multiple doctors, having damn near every test done, including a MRI, I have no answers to what it could be. 

I experience two different kinds of brain zaps. 

The first, and in my opinion, the worst one, is kind of hard to explain. It's like if you were to spin around a million times, lick a car battery and have that tingly numb sensation when your hand falls asleep, in your brain, all at once. 

I feel light headed, and almost like I am floating, then I start to get dizzy, really dizzy, so much so that I actually hold onto the furniture because it feels like I'm going to fall or fly off the planet. Then I feel the weird tingly numb sensation in my brain. The best way I can describe it, is the same or very similar to when your foot or hand falls asleep. I then start to feel like I'm going to black out and faint. Sometimes, afterwards I feel odd, I have difficulty remembering things, like where I am, what I was doing, how to write or use a phone and the very worst times, I have forgotten to how speak and walk. 

These sensations last for about a minute, but the feeling of being off and forgetfulness can last hours afterwards. I don't have to be doing anything particular for these to happen. I have had them while sitting on my couch watching t.v, while scrolling my instagram timeline, while in a car at a red light, while in the store shopping, while standing in line at the bank. They don't seem to actually have any sort of real trigger. 

The first time I ever experienced one of these was in 2006/2007. My doctor at the time had no explanation, but I went through a battery of tests and even wore a heart monitor for a few days. Of course everything came back as normal, so we all just kind of shrugged and agreed that if it happened again I would return for more tests. 

I didn't have another for 10 years.

Then all of a sudden I had another one. I went to a medi-center because my other doctor had retired, and after talking to the doctor there, I went for another round of testing, blood, urine, heart, the usual. Again, every test came back with normal results. There was absolutely no sign of what had caused it, but there was a new symptom that coincided with the brain zap, vertigo. 

Out of frustration and desperation I found a great new family doctor. I told him everything, what I was doing when the brain zaps happen, how they feel, how I feel afterwards, how often they happen and even told him about the vertigo that may or may not be connected. 

He took me seriously, which was a nice change from the other doctors I had been seeing. He ordered more tests, not just the basic ones like all the other doctors, he ordered some x-rays and a heart test, then when all of those tests came back showing normal results, he ordered an MRI on my brain. While we waited for the MRI results to come back, we focused on the vertigo. My doctor believes that it is a benign form of vertigo, the kind that really defies explanation but it isn't harmful either. We tried a couple different medications that didn't do much and some physio moves to help realign the crystals in my inner ear, which also aren't all that helpful. But, at least the vertigo we know isn't causing me any harm, it's just inconvenient. 

The MRI results came back showing nothing unusual, just a healthy brain. So we consulted a neurologist. The neurologist really didn't have any answers either, because without there being any sign of harm and normal test results, they don't know what to even look for, let alone how to diagnose it or treat it. So we have just been keeping an eye on things ever since, there's not much else we can do about it. 

The second kind of brain zap is actually why I even call these things brain zaps. Way less scary, and sometimes even kind of funny. 

This one is an actual electric zap. It starts in my brain, hence the term, and shoots out in one of three places, the back of my neck, my finger tips or the soles of my feet. 

I can see, feel and hear the electric zaps as they happen, and they are extremely painful, similar to being electrocuted. 

I have no idea just what they are, or why they happen, but they are exclusively at night, shortly before I fall asleep. I have chalked them up to being similar to exploding head syndrome, annoying but not harmful. They are odd though, because if I am thinking about something specific when they happen it almost is as if the zap resets my brain because my thought is gone and I can't even remember what it was I was thinking about right before it happened. 

My husband believes that these electric zaps are actually a discharge of built up static electricity in my body, and I have to say, it seems like the best explanation. I have always been electrically charged more than anyone else we know. 

Just how much static electricity does my body build up? Well, I don't even have to touch you to zap you, just get close to you. And I have to ground myself before I can even touch electronics, because if I don't there is a really good chance that I will surge whatever it is that I touch. 

My husband has experienced this first hand way too many times. I will sit on the couch next to him and he will get zapped, or we will hand each other the tablet, cell phone or laptop and the thing will power surge as I touch it. And it isn't just at home. 

I have zapped strangers in the mall who walked too close to me. I have completely downed the debit machines in several stores. The worst was in a Walmart, I went to touch the machine to pay for my items and I zapped the thing, which ended up surging the entire store, including the self checkout and customer service. The manager had to reset the entire stores systems and I had to have my son do the actual paying with my card once the systems were operational again. 

I have even zapped the car accidentally which resulted in all kinds of weird electrical issues for a couple days afterwards. 

I like to pay exclusively in cash because of this, but even then, I have zapped the actual ATM machine and had to have the bank call someone to repair it. 

My husband jokes that he is going to get me a grounding strap, just like a car, but I actually think that is a great idea. I have already started looking into getting myself some copper jewelry that will touch the ground as I walk. In the summer, I try to walk around barefoot as much as possible, or wear shoes that are made of natural materials rather than rubber so that I can literally ground myself and not zap everyone and everything. 

I can't even complain to my husband when I have issues with electronics because there is a good chance that the electronics are fine and it is me, with my electric zaps, that is causing the problem. 

The funniest zap so far has been when a fly decided it wanted to land on me. Big mistake Mr. fly! The fly was zapped and literally fell to his death the second it touched me. 

As funny as this might sound, it is really frustrating to live with, I can't touch the people I love without ground myself first, I can't touch anything electronic without grounding myself, I have to watch how close I walk passed people and electronics when I am out of the house, and I apologize to my poor dog a lot because she doesn't understand why she gets zapped when she tried to cuddle me. 

The pain that I get with the brain zaps at bed time subsides quickly but it still hurts. My husband has been laying with me when it has happened and he got zapped on the other side of the bed, so I know this one isn't made up, it is a real electric charge being dispelled from my body.