How could someone spending hours on end enrobed in such wonderful sensation not notice? RELATED: What to Do When COVID Kills Your Sense of Smell and Taste
Why Our Brains ‘Ignore’ Some Scents
Scent processing happens in a very old part of the brain, one that is very closely related to memory. It’s why a dog will remember where he’s buried his bone, and why a particular smell will send us straight back in time to a place or person with which the smell has a strong connection. Scent is also everywhere … everywhere! If the brain didn’t filter it out at some point, we’d be overwhelmed by the experience. Once our higher brain has remembered, identified, classified, and verified our surroundings as safe by the way they smell, it moves on to the next thing, and we sort of stop smelling whatever it is. This goes for bad smells, too, but not as much, because the brain is trying to tell us that we mightn’t want to hang around, for safety or sanity. RELATED: Hyperosmia: My MS Makes Smells Smell … a Lot
My Tendency to Ignore Certain MS Symptoms
Much as my brain stops smelling certain odors, so does it seem to stop noticing many of my MS symptoms. At a recent physiotherapist appointment for what I think of as a tangential MS symptom — the way multiple sclerosis causes me to walk has really mucked up my feet — I was met with the “smells” of this disease that my brain has turned off so I can get on with my life. The physiotherapist was pointing out in my feet, ankles, toes, calf muscles, and so on, how my drop-foot, reduced sensation, and weakness, as well as my compensation for them, was causing knock-on effects on my gait, muscle mass, and bone-to-tendon alignments. She took out skeletal models and showed me how my feet were working (or not), and how that put pressure on places it wasn’t supposed to be, and how the issues with my feet had a cascade of responses all the way up my legs to my hips and back. Everything she pointed out in a physical manifestation on my body, I could relate to an MS symptom or the results of said symptom. She said x is happening because your foot As, Bs, and Cs. And she was spot-on in every observation.
Overlooking Symptoms Allows Me to Get on With Life
But I’d “forgot” about what MS was doing down there. Not “forgot” as in denying that it was happening. “Forgot” in the way our chocolatier assimilates to her workplace’s decadent musk of cocoa so she can get on with the day’s job. Perhaps it’s more like a tabby in a field of catnip trying to focus on a shrew it’s eyed for lunch, as my avoidance of the symptoms has more to do with survival than with making truffles. We have become adept at living in spite of, alongside, and in stride (albeit a wonky stride) with the disease that takes away our abilities.
But There’s Value Also in Noticing the Effects of MS
We drove away from the appointment with a prescription for new orthotics for my shoes, stretches for my legs and back, and the reminder that while I mightn’t pay my full attention to some of the symptoms of my MS, they are there, and they are having a detrimental effect on my body beyond the symptoms themselves. And I had a craving for chocolate. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
