Posted by Racer on December 29, 2005, at 4:49:42
In reply to Re: Hypersensitivity to touch, smell, taste..., posted by yxibow on December 29, 2005, at 1:03:19
First, the hypersensitivity may be related to the Lexapro. Many of the SRIs have caused me hypersensitivity in touch and smell -- gets to where I can't be around food, because of the smell, or have trouble staying out of the shower because my own skin smells weird to me. Or I'll get a very strange touch thing going on, that I can't describe but when it happens I want to twitch out of my skin with it. Taste isn't so bad for me, but we're all different, eh?
As for autism, have you read Temple Grandin's books about her experiences? They're fascinating, and do describe jumbled sensations and hypersensitivity, which she thinks are the basis for much of autism. (Her books include "Emergence: Labelled Autistic," "Thinking in Pictures," and I forget the others.)
But I just read something -- forget where -- which strongly suggested that the autistic spectrum disorders are manifested differently in men and women. It theorized that the milder autistic disorders are much more commonly diagnosed in men, because doctors don't recognize the way they're expressed in women. I thought when I read it that some mild area of the spectrum might be part of my problem, because of things like not being comfortable with touch, and being awfully geeky when I'm not careful about it. Wish I could remember where I read it, but it should be findable -- maybe google something like "autism +mild +female +atypical?"
And I was both sexually abused in childhood and raped in adulthood -- and have trouble with being touched when I don't initiate it. And there are times I'm just plain too prickly to be touched. Unless you want to be pulling barbs out of your muzzle for the rest of the day...
poster:Racer
thread:592767
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051221/msgs/593047.html