Utsikt
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Always on my left. Have never tried swapping.
Needing to lie flat
- Thread starter Jonathan Edwards
- Start date
Lisan_Al_Ghaib_87
Established Member
I know that its extremely speculative and very farfetched but I was reading some time ago Sagan's The Dragons of Eden where he was speculating the "fear of falling" as an innate, evolved mechanism rooted in the history of human ancestors. He cites Washburn's theory that our ancestors lived in trees, where falling was a frequent and deadly danger thus the instinctual fear of falling is specifically tied to the dangers posed by gravity to tree-dwellers. In this prism we can consider the need to lay down/flat or secure our position during PEM or even at baseline ME/CFS as an internal danger response to whatever goes continuously wrong in cellular level which can cause the aforementioned incidents i.e "falling from the tree".
obeat
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
PUTTING FEET UP
We have joint position sense in our nerves so our brain always knows where our body is. What if the need to put our feet up is to reduce that sensory input?
NEEDING TO LIE MORE FLAT
Our semicircular canals record our body position so again it looks like an attempt to reduce sensory input.
I don't understand why the need to reduce sensory input to the brain is so urgent.
This seems to be different to autism where sensory overload bills up over a period of time.
Oestrogens modulate sensory synapses
Just my idle musings
We have joint position sense in our nerves so our brain always knows where our body is. What if the need to put our feet up is to reduce that sensory input?
NEEDING TO LIE MORE FLAT
Our semicircular canals record our body position so again it looks like an attempt to reduce sensory input.
I don't understand why the need to reduce sensory input to the brain is so urgent.
This seems to be different to autism where sensory overload bills up over a period of time.
Oestrogens modulate sensory synapses
Just my idle musings
Felis Catus
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I find lying on my side exhausting. As if it requires putting in strength to hold myself in that position.
My HR lying on my side is higher than lying on my back or front, as @Utsikt said for 5-10 bpm.
I used to sleep on my side before getting ill which I can't imagine now.
Most of the time I'm awake I lie on my back. As soon as I'm a little bit worse, I start feeling something, a sensation, in my lower back and the urge to turn to my front. Lying on my front then feels better (it actually always does but the view is worse and life is more impractical).
The worse I am, the more lying on my front feels inadequate. It feels as if my body wants to sink deeper like @StellariaGraminea has mentioned.
My HR lying on my side is higher than lying on my back or front, as @Utsikt said for 5-10 bpm.
I used to sleep on my side before getting ill which I can't imagine now.
Most of the time I'm awake I lie on my back. As soon as I'm a little bit worse, I start feeling something, a sensation, in my lower back and the urge to turn to my front. Lying on my front then feels better (it actually always does but the view is worse and life is more impractical).
The worse I am, the more lying on my front feels inadequate. It feels as if my body wants to sink deeper like @StellariaGraminea has mentioned.
ScoutB
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I've always assumed my need to lay down was something like this (maybe something more subtle and complicated, but along these lines) because my fogginess definitely gets worse the longer I am sitting/standing still. Being vertical is less bad if I am slightly moving/walking (at least in the short term, not sure about PEM) -- which really makes me think blood flow again.
It is interesting to read these posts! I definetly have an "urge" as well, but it's not the main symptoms of needing to lay flat. My main symptom is that I feel I cannot breath, and as soon as I bring my head & legs on the right levels I can breath in and out properly again.
Also I think the dutch doctor (forgot the name) that did some blood flow during tilt table testing did find blood flow abnormalities even in people that didn't have symptoms or signs of (bp, hr) orthostatic intolerance. No idea where the study is though, or how well it was setup...
Also I think the dutch doctor (forgot the name) that did some blood flow during tilt table testing did find blood flow abnormalities even in people that didn't have symptoms or signs of (bp, hr) orthostatic intolerance. No idea where the study is though, or how well it was setup...
ScoutB
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Yes, I was thinking about these too -- assuming you mean the van Campen studies (discussed on S4ME here, among other places). If I recall correctly they are using a slightly different technique than has been used previously so we'd like their studies to be replicated, but definitely intriguing.
In a modern vehicle, I wonder how many warnings of immediate failure (Your engine is about to blow up!!!) are due to failures of the sensors or the processor, rather than actual vehicle problems. I doubt that humans evolved failure-free sensor/processing systems. There's probably a long list of known failure modes, with the prevalence decreasing according to risk to survival (at least until past breeding age).