Is your "startle reflex” super sensitive?

Usually I am totally anti-startle. However if I am in PEM, its the opposite. I react super fast. I just don't have the energy to jump.

 

When telephones first began to switch from mechanical to electronic rings, there was one particular kind of electronic ring that sort of startled me, or at least put my teeth on edge. I may not have been the only one, since I never hear that particular ring anymore. My own phone did not have a ring like that, so the effect was not from some personal phone call anxiety.

My theory is that some phone company genius decided to conduct extensive tests on what new electronic ring got the most attention, and succeeded only too well. The only place I hear that particular ring anymore is in movies made at that time (early to mid 90's I think) and it still creeps me out.

 

Mine has never been normal since I got sick, but it is variable and mixed. These days, the most common response is what most people here are reporting - an exaggerated startle response. However, sometimes I'll have none at all (at least not outwardly) in response to a stimuli that should trigger it. I think a few people above mentioned the patellar reflex - the knee jerk thingie with the hammer. In the early years my docs were always surprised that I had no response at all to this.

Quite frequently, I'll feel a startle response - it travels down my spine and rattles in my mind - but no overt movement accompanies it. If anything I go a bit slack. This brings to mind Polyvagal theory, which if I recall* posits 3 branches to the ANS, the third being a freeze/"play possum" response.
*(it's been a long time since I last read about it)

"play possum" in conjunction with hibernation/torpor/dauer is intriguing to think about. I wonder if some of us have conserved pseudo-vestigial genes and pathways for entering these states, but - over millennia of disuse - have lost the genes for exiting them. ...I suppose this isn't an optimistic theory... Perhaps the "switches" are both conserved and a treatment would be to find the correct epigenetic modifier to trigger transcription of the "exit torpor" instructions. Entirely speculative. (and possibly this last paragraph belongs in a different thread? I'm new here ...will go poke around with the search function in a mo)



I upped my NAC intake about 5-fold starting 3 weeks ago. I feel like my startle response has reduced since then, but it's too early to say with any certainty.



Does anyone else experience what I mentioned above? An internally felt startle response but with no accompanying movement?

 

I'm curious what effect you are looking for in taking lots of NAC?

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

 

Now you mention it, yes. Whenever the fire alarm goes off in the building I live in. Though sometimes also accompanied by a slight physical start but not always.

Not sure but the difference may be as to whether I'm lying on the couch or standing up somewhere. I've never been standing when the alarm has gone off and being startled standing up is mostly in the past as there is only my husband home to startle me and that is always when I'm standing in the kitchen making something to eat.

These days there is no accompanying adrenaline surge as I believe I experienced long ago with the balloon example.

 

Yes.

 

I quite often get what I call an uncaused, stress reaction, which is a plain jangled-nerves sort of thing. It occurs, apparently spontaneously, once a week or so. However, of late, I have taken closer notice and have been able to pick the odd occasion when it was caused by some minor stress. I'm too far gone for it to do anything to me externally; but I did get, early on, for a year or two, some trembling, occasionally. I have associated it with the CFS/ME and have wondered if it is all to do with having been very nervy as a teen. A highly-primed flight-or-fight system, or nervous exhaustion, has often been suggested as associated with CFS/ME but I've not heard if others with CFS/ME were also nervous sorts before coming down with it.

 

Riding in a vehicle & being passed by another vehicle on the highway & I am on the floor nearly crying.

 

Yes.

One of the things I noticed in the first year of ME was that I was very sensitive to dogs barking, motorcycles revving and other sudden loud sounds.

 

What not to do!

Don’t climb on a chair to change the battery in the smoke detector and then press the button to check it is working without bracing yourself for the startle reflex when it goes off. And certainly don’t repeat the action a second time a couple of minutes later.

At least only fell off the chair once.

 

For me it varies from day to day, but when in PEM I'm highly sensitive and jumpy.

Years ago when I took mg/taurine injections you could have blowened an air horn right beside me and I wouldn't have even flinched. Maybe I was taking too many shots, but boy did it feel good.

 

Yes, but I also have anxiety and tend toward hypervigilance. The anxiety accompanied a worsening of ME symptoms so a bit chicken and egg...

 

For many months when had EBV, I would have a startle feeling right when I woke up. It happened just upon waking. This returned for a few weeks after my COVID vaccination.

 

Same, it is only a problem when suffering from PEM and I find it hard to concentrate.