I know I've said this a lot of late but again I must apologize for the long lapses between these blog posts. I've actually been quite under the weather since the Wednesday before Christmas. (I've had a cough for nearly five weeks that I can't seem to shake.) I seem to always get a prolonged cough within about 6 months after moving to a new city but for some reason, this time it's knocked me on my butt for WAY longer than any previous experience. Very frustrating.

On a good note, the break in rain and bright sunshine this morning inspired me to attend my first writing MeetUp near where I live and I'm so glad I did. I met so many friendly people and hopefully this will be the spark that gets me writing more regularly again. I do have some exciting misophonia news to share and now's the perfect time to do so...

I've tried to keep in contact with the London researcher to find out about the results of the fMRI research study in which I participated back in February 2014. After reaching out to him again to see if there was any news to share, he told me that although he's still in the process of writing the formal paper, they did come up with some interesting findings. To quote him (since some of this is a bit over my head and I'm going to have to do a little more research before I'd be able understand it well enough to try and paraphrase what he wrote...):

     "To give you a short summary of the fMRI data we found  higher activity in anterior insula in misophonic participants (compared to controls) when they are listening to trigger sounds and not when they are listening to other sounds. We also found that a part of the frontal lobe called vmPFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) has higher myelination in misophonic compared to controls. 

     Now the anterior insula is known to be involved in feelings of the body and is known to map physiological state of the body.I think our data clearly establishes misophonia as a disorder and I hope that our paper should settle this issue (and hopefully the medical community will start taking it more seriously.)"   - Dr. Sukhbinder Kumar

Hopefully this bit of news will give hope to other misophonia sufferers (along with friends and family who also care about the people they know with misophonia) that misophonia is not just in our heads (psychologically) but is a real, physiological condition that needs more research!!!

I'd like to thank Dr. Kumar and his team for not only taking a chance to research misophonia when so many others in the scientific community still don't recognize it as being worthy enough of a condition to warrant research. I'd also like to especially thank Dr. Kumar for allowing me to participate in the study despite my being from the United States. I know that they were hesitant to include me since they could not reimburse me for my travel expenses; but I wholeheartedly believe that misophonia research is so important in this journey for relief for all sufferers that I'm willing to do whatever I can (even if it means traveling out of pocket) to help bring more awareness about misophonia to the general population and offer assistance to the scientific and medical professions whenever I am able. I feel honored that my contribution to the study was able to help with these exciting new findings and look forward to reading the published report when it is complete.

I can't believe we're nearly halfway through January 2016! Normally I'm pretty good about posting updates around the holidays. Unfortunately, I've been under the weather for the past three weeks and having trouble shaking whatever it is. I don't know if it's all the traveling I've been doing over the past couple of months or the fact that I usually get sick around six months after moving to a new city. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Whatever it is, I've been having trouble just functioning in general, let alone thinking about my misophonia.

For the most part, I've been in bed the past three weekends, only getting up to go to the doctor or going to work during the week, so my exposure to triggers has been limited to those I experience from TV commercials, my bird getting restless/whiny, or food triggers by my coworker.

I did have an interesting misophonia discussion with my uncle when I went home last month. I made a comment about how I need to push myself to go out and socialize more, so I can  develop a network of friends in my new city. At first I attributed my homebody tendencies to being an introvert, but when my uncle mentioned he didn't like those types of classifications about people, I said even if it's not due to my being introverted, I tend to avoid public situations when I can to minimize trigger exposure. He was willing to accept that explanation but then when we started talking about misophonia and triggers, he asked me a question that I still struggle trying to come up with an answer...

I tried to explain how misophonia is not just an experience about being bothered by triggers... It manifests itself as extreme annoyance to the point of rage. That's when my uncle asked me, "How is misophonia different than road rage?" I honestly couldn't come up with a good explanation. I know misophonia is triggered by sensory input (sounds, visuals, tactile, etc) but I couldn't figure out how to contradict how road rage is different.  People who experience road rage are angered by visuals such as a person cutting in front of them or maybe a sound of someone honking behind them. How is that different than being angered by someone bouncing their leg or listening to slurping noises?

Maybe my being ill is just not letting me see the obvious logical answer. Perhaps one of you readers can come up with a good explanation. I'm certainly open to suggestions.  :-)