“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”—Sharon Begley.

I decided to tackle the presumed visceral hypersensitivity first. I went on trials of fluoxetine, amitriptyline, despiramine, gabapentin, all having no effect whatsoever. The condition just laughed off these drugs.

 

Indeed, I had come up with my own aphorism to describe these results: no effect detected. The origin of this saying is that if a drug could indeed do something, its effect would likely be so small that I would need to have a dedicated detector looking for it.

 

In addition to medication, I had tried acupuncture and a TENS unit. This last one turned out to be laughable as increasing the electricity on the TENS unit produced a sensation similar to spray painting.

 

At one point, I was once again found myself without a doctor and at the time, some drugs that were being tested to treat IBS were 5HT-3 antagonists, namely cilansetron, which apparently never got anywhere. Well, the only ones that were on the market at the time were granisetron and ondanestron. It wasn’t clear why these weren’t being tested, so I decided to try, once again with a fake prescription (can you feel the desperation?). At the time, granisetron was solely used to treat nausea caused by cancer chemotherapy and it wasn’t generic. So doctors used it so sparingly that the pharmacist called me and told me it would take a few days to order it up special for my fake prescription since they didn’t have the 30 pills I “prescribed” on hand. It’s a good thing he didn’t decide to call the “doctor”.

 

However, it had no (detectable) effect.

 

This time around, I began to doubt the visceral hypersensitivity theory. What if the cheese grater is not pain per se but something else? After all, it didn’t behave like pain. It’s specific to the same regions of the gut as is the spray painting, namely the areas of the gut where the flora live. It also stands to reason that visceral hypersensitivity is something either you have or you don’t. But the cheesegrater follows the same rules as spray painting. It can’t hurt after eating after a prolonged fast. The disease entity becomes disconnected during that time. It also cannot radiate like pain can. Therefore, I conclude that the cheesegrater represents its own, novel class of sensation, much like itching is a sensation separate from pain.

 

If you are wondering if I had ever tried opiates, the answer is yes. I did try tramadol for at least a month. I recall it had a constipating effect but no effect on either the spray painting or the cheesegrater. I never pursued opiates beyond that.

 

In attempting to reduce the disordered gut motility producing the spray painting, the US had merely two options: hyoscyamine and dicyclomine. I had already tried dicyclomine to a massive 60 mg dose and that had—you guessed it—no detectable effect. For whatever reason, I hadn’t initially tried to massively dose hyoscyamine, but a single 0.125 mg had no detectable effect. So I needed other options. It turns out that outside the US there were plenty. So I systematically tried the following

 

alverine

cimetropium

mebeverine

otilonium

pinaverium

rociverine

tiropiramide

 

In addition, I tried calcium channel blockers like nifedipine and bronchodilators. The logic here was that I thought it might exhibit some sort of sympathetic suppression of gut activity.

 

As you might expect, I couldn’t detect any effect from any of them. However, looking back on it, I wonder if my trials were done “correctly”. I certainly didn’t stay on the meds for very long, under the possibly false notion that all drugs act super fast. I got that perception from watching TV shows like “Emergency” where drugs given to persons in acute medical crisis were treated with success very quickly by pushing intravenous drugs. So I had come to the conclusion that all drugs act quickly and decisively. For these particular drugs, this may not be correct. I probably should have taken each medication for at least a few weeks before calling it quits.

 

However, it’s unlikely these drugs could have worked because the logic of action was that in order to work, they had to sufficiently suppress gut motility to the point where spray painting wasn’t possible. That might mean suppressing it to the point where it so deeply interferes with normal peristalsis that it essentially results in a condition similar to paralytic ileus. Obviously, that wouldn’t be sustainable without giving up food and getting on parenteral nutrition. And what effect would it have of all the air passing through my gut?

 

I was able to test these medications because at the time, there were means on the Internet to order them online and have them shipped to the US. (Even though we are more deeply connected today, I’m not sure these avenues are as available as they were back then.)