From Hallucinations, pains, to dorsal horn reorganizations

I went to see my psychiarist yesterday and did some talk therapy kind of thing since meds and talk therapy are the only means to get rid of psychosomatic kinda psychopathology such as conversion disorder kinda thing.

One thing came up was the question (which I raised myself)... is the perception of pain my hallucination? Does it really exist or is it just like the voices that I hear...

The problem is...

With auditory hallucination, I know that there are no real people talking.... what I hear or perceived to have heard has been generated by my own dear head.

With the nerve pain and the ensuing pains and aches, there is no easy way to tell whether the nerves are really pinching without high tech equipments.

Another thing that came up was whether there might be alternative neurological basis other than the hernia and stenoses.

When I was young, I had braces and the dentist told me that I am stuck with the retainer till the day I stop kicking because my tongue is the culprit that keeps pushing my upper front teeth outward.

It has been almost 25 years now since I started wearing my retainer on a daily basis... until the accident.

All of a sudden, I came to the realization that I don't need that retainer anymore...

Call it a hallucination, delusion, illusion or pure misperception, my teeth on the upper part also seem to align much tighter than the retainer was designed for.... :-O

The structural shift of my cervical spine or the straightening of it has made my tongue shorter or, more correctly, pushed my tongue backwards....

In addition, auditory stimuli (e.g., noise, voice, fast speech), visual stimuli (that’s why sometimes I have to move with eyes closed), vibration (e.g, car engine started), and, the attempt to comprehend fast speech, all of these and more could trigger or intensify my pain…

This is why I could not stop wondering... (in addition to the learning theories and how constant experiences of pains could lead to the strengthening of the pathway towards pain [sounds like unterweg zur sprache lol ]... practice effect in essence)

Since the tongue is pushed back for about an inch, and, since the spine is linked to my head... could there be unidentified organic fucked-up-ness in my head or restructuring of neuropathways resulting from the structural shift?

My psychiatrist asked me what it might be?

I replied something like, "What would I know... I am no MD."

Then, later on till this point, I kept on hearing the whispering of the word, either in public or in private ("in private" means I am really sure that no one else is talking but I am hearing it) … "Dorsal Horn Reorganization" in my head and it would not stop--- despite of my telling it to shut up or, later, changed the tactic, told it that I acknowledge the possibility of its existence- until I put its name on the blog.... lol

Is this an indication of my hypochondria? Could be.

Or, it might be an indication of my attempt to find something more than merely the term "abnormal pain pattern" to describe my condition... since I have long known I am part of that abnormal population and well preached about how my pain pattern is abnormal.

Or, maybe, it is just my delayed narrow band response to complete answering my psychiatrist' question.

P.S.---

Hallucinations and delusions could be creative. Yet, they are rooted in one’s background knowledge. This is why, before TV, TV related delusions or hallucinations would not have been used as examplar indicators in DSM.

My head did not generate the word dorsal horn reorganization out of vacuum… or via some telepathic learning mechanism (which would actually be excellent shall that be plausible cuz no more need, then, for burning the midnight oil... lol). This is a medical term I read before and somehow my beautiful head decided to have this piece of information retrieved.

At the same time, since I do not yet have the “belief” that what has happened to be is a result of “Dorsal Horn Reorganization,” the occurrence of this term is only hallucination and is not yet my delusion (I think so… ).