Sleep. That place to which we all disappear for hours at a time. Drifting off. The mysterious and intangible loss of consciousness. The strangeness of dreams. Waking refreshed . . . or not so much.

As a kid, I was scared of the loss of consciousness that is implicit and inevitable in falling sleep. As an adult, I have, at times, felt even more afraid of the continuity of consciousness that is implicit and inevitable in being awake.

The protagonist of the novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh, falls into the latter camp. She does not want to experience life. She wants to fade away, to live in the darkest shadows, where she cannot be found—not by anyone, and especially not by herself:

“And that was exactly what I wanted—my emotions passing like headlights that shine softly through a window, sweep past me, illuminate something vaguely familiar, then fade and leave me in the dark again.”

The protagonist adores sleep like nothing else in life. That is a very oxymoronic stance to take. Sleeping, she does not exist. Waking, she fetishizes sleep:

“The bed was a king, low to the ground, and whenever I slept in it, I felt very far away from the world, like I was in a spaceship or on the moon. I missed that bed. The stiff blankness of my mother’s eggshell sheets.”

I am currently coming out of a period of “rest and relaxation” myself. Over the past few years, I have experienced a variety of physical and mental health issues that I am treating with wellness activities . . . and prescription drugs. My doctor recently changed the dosages when I explained that I was sleeping too much at night, sleepy throughout the day, and struggling to get things done. The past couple weeks have been a wonderful period of awakening. And yet, I remember the great relief I felt upon descending, initially, into the sleepiness that would rescue me from my ailments.

One could, I suppose, judge those who use drugs that cause them to descend into sleep as somehow lacking in the vitals of life. Perhaps I and Moshfegh’s protagonist—and I may as well add Juliet and Romeo—are poor, broken, creatures who cannot sustain the light of consciousness as naturally given to us. Or perhaps, as in the case of Rip Van Winkle, intoxicating ourselves to sleep is something that just happens to some of us, beyond our control and comprehension.

Are you feeling sleepy?

I was stumped by yet another medical mystery.

I have been plagued by migraine headaches for my whole life. My triggers include too much sunlight or sunlight from certain angles; overheating; too much alcohol; dehydration; not enough sleep; too much jostling while traveling by car, bus, train, plane, boat, roller coaster, horse and buggy, etc.; jostling from too much coughing; and vomiting for any reason. (Apologies if that was too graphic for you. . . . If it was, you may wish to stop reading.)

These migraines are no small deal. They leave me moaning in bed in severe pain. And they last ten days: exactly ten days, no matter what I do, diminishing in severity during that time. Luckily, I get them only a few times per year. Unluckily, they are debilitating, causing me to miss work, social engagements, and regular life activities; and they are extremely unpleasant.

(And people wonder why I don’t like to travel! Have you ever been stuck in a New York City hotel with a ten-day migraine?)

My usual medicine for migraines is ibuprofen. Lots of ibuprofen. 800 mg, 4 times a day, for 10 days. This allows me to return to work within a day or two, though at that point I still have frequent intervals during which I need to lie down.

Having heard about other medicines on the market, I asked my doctor about my options. Over a period of a year or two, she recommended a series of drugs, all in the triptan family: rizatriptan, sumatriptan, etc. I must have tried them all. But I could not keep a single one of them down. Within half an hour to an hour of taking a pill, I would acquire a level 10—maximum strength!!—headache, vomit the pill up, and stagger off to bed for the next several days.

Finally, after completing the brutal rounds of the triptans, my doctor recommended magnesium supplements. In previous months, I had taken a daily magnesium pill, but it did not seem to have any effect. However, my doctor explained that magnesium is not always absorbed well by the body, and some supplement formulations work significantly better than others.

Upon hearing this, I scampered off to the Internet. There, I read that, indeed, some magnesium pills are nearly useless because the body does not absorb the mineral. Yikes! I decided to try, instead of a pill, a powder that I mix with water. The manufacturer claims that the magnesium in this powder is in an easily digestible form.

Well, and guess what? I have not suffered from a ten-day migraine attack—knock on wood!—since beginning this daily powder supplement regimen, which was many months ago. (When I feel a headache coming on, I still reach for my ibuprofen standby and pop those pills as soon as possible, along with half a slice of bread so they are absorbed. This has happened several times in the past few months, but none of these twinges have developed into a full-blown attack—knock on more wood!)

This solution may not work for everyone. Everybody’s body is different. But perhaps it will help someone out there; and so I share my story.*

But anyway, here’s the main medical mystery here: why on earth didn’t my doctor share the magnesium idea first, before hitting me up with the hard stuff?

(I have some guesses as to the answer, and none of them are pretty. Fortunately, though, you stopped reading back at the second paragraph, so you will not be filled with desperation at the suggestion of pharmaceutical companies’ mighty, and powerfully complex, hold over physicians (see, for example, this article about human tendencies toward reciprocal gift giving); or patients who insist on the hard stuff, and as much of it as possible, and are offended by attempts to seek more natural solutions. . . .)

*Please be so good as to refer to the footnote in my original Medical Mysteries post.

I was stumped by yet another medical mystery.

(This has happened with great frequency in my life, for some reason.)

My trouble this time around was a big and nasty plantar wart on the bottom of my right foot. Luckily, it did not bother me as I walked or ran. Unluckily, it was hideous. It was also contagious—this type of wart spreads in places like showers—and I certainly didn’t want to introduce the virus to someone else’s poor foot.

First, I tried an over-the-counter wart remover. I diligently applied the stuff every day for twelve weeks. However, while the wart did peel off layer by layer and diminish in size, the medicine failed to remove its deepest roots. When I stopped daily application, it grew back.

I visited my doctor and asked for advice. She recommended cryotherapy, a.k.a. freezing the wart off with liquid nitrogen. I gave the OK, and she administered weekly treatments for five weeks. But this was also ineffective. She then recommended surgery.

Surgery?! Though it would have been extremely minor surgery, the word sent me scampering off to the Internet. There, I learned about a state-of-the-art medicine that was ultimately successful in removing my plantar wart: apple cider vinegar. The folk tales about the stuff are, apparently, true!

All I had to do was soak a tiny piece of cotton in apple cider vinegar, squeeze out most of the excess liquid, place it on my wart, and cover and seal it with clear packaging tape. I wore this apple cider vinegar “band-aid” until it became too painful or fell off, perhaps 12 hours or so. I made myself another band-aid the next day, and the next. My wart turned black and peeled off in just three days—and it did not grow back.

(Note: the seal must completely block the cotton from the outside air. You will know the seal is good if the tape fogs up. Masking tape does not work, as I discovered. The websites I found recommended duct tape, but I didn’t have any around the house, so I used packaging tape, which worked swimmingly for me.)

So what is this medical story doing on a blog about wisdom and books? Well, it’s illustrative of how important storytelling is. The best answer to a given problem does not always emerge from the most obvious or authoritative place. Sometimes it does, of course. But at other times, it can be beneficial to seek out stories that others have told, whether on the Internet or in print, that may be applicable to your situation.

And maybe, just maybe, my story in this blog post will help someone else out there one day.*

Pass it on, friends: what medical mysteries have you solved recently?

*I am not a doctor. Nothing in this blog should be construed as medical advice. I have never set foot in a medical school. Honestly, people, the sight of blood makes me nauseous. The reader follows any advice herein at the reader's own peril and blah blah ditty blah as heretofore stated, ditty-duh blah blah bleh, and shall as per due process be assumed, to wit, construed, without bail, under the full persecution and disestablishment and distention and confection of the due ditty blah law, consequent to henceforward.