Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Unquenchable Thirst

One of the nice side effects of Chiari is an unquenchable thirst. Apparently, the cerebellum is in charge of my thirst meter.


I drink probable more than 100 oz if water a day and yet I am still thirsty! There is evidence to suggest that the cerebellum is responsible for a number of cognitive tasks. Here are a few of them: sensory processing and discrimination, mental imagery, motor learning, classical conditioning, non-motor learning and memory, linguistic processing, timing estimation, emotion perception and experience, visual spatial memory, executive function (including verbal working memory, strategy, reasoning, and verbal fluency) , and autonomic functions including the experience and anticipation of pain, thirst, hunger, and smell.

So ~ in summary ~ all of the above mentioned functions go haywire when the cerebellum is being squished into the spinal column!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Amazing. And yet you still write so eloquently!

TheStolenOlive said...

I find this very interesting as I am so completely opposite.

I have been doing Weight Watchers for about 6 months now. I'm supposed to be drinking a measley 48oz of water a day.

1) Water is NASTY! I can't stomach it at all. I guess it's subconscious but I get totally nauseated at the taste of plain water.

I have to drink Fruit20 or Crystal Light or put Sweet n Low & Lemon in it just to stomach the stuff.

2) I drink mostly milk & fruit juice. But, even with that... if I drink more than about 36oz of anything, I just want to get sick. Totally bloated & nauseated.

I wish I could drink as much as you do, but I am just never thirsty.