So the "I feel normal, everything is fine" stage faded pretty quick and I've been having some unusual intermittent headaches. So it's one of two things:

1) I feel terrible, thiamine is DEFINITELY NOT working.

2) I feel terrible, paradox syndrome is real, thiamine DEFINITELY IS working.

It's for sure one of those two.

I just had one of the weirdest experiences of my life and if anyone else told me this story I would assume they either had one too many pot brownies or trying to sell me some MLM shake thing, or both. I felt really good yesterday morning when I woke up, but as the day wore on I started getting a headache and by the afternoon it was hitting about a 4 on the pain scale and taking a nap did nothing. Potassium did nothing. Water did nothing. I made dinner, ate, and felt even worse. About 8pm I took a cool shower and laid down. Pain escalated to a solid 7 and I was thinking if it got much worse I was going to throw up. The sinus pressure/pain was intense. When I have a headache it feels like interconnected small pockets in my deep sinuses get overpressurized and very angry. I play this little game where I visualize a tunnel leading to the pocket and piercing it to "drain" the pocket. Sometimes I'll feel an extra dribble of fluid down the back of my throat and the pressure will back off for a little bit there but increase somewhere else. But it takes a lot of active mental focus to relax the tissues and get any relief. Start thinking about other things and the body will tense up and the pressure will increase. The more it hurts the harder it is to relax.

So I'm laying in bed with an eye mask on for total darkness and I have one pain pocket on my left side, behind my left eye/cheekbone, that is just killing me. My nerves are going nuts - at one point my whole left nasal cavity from nostril to throat was aching, even the nerves in my teeth hurt. I'm debating the merits of throwing up in the bathroom vs bedroom waste bin. I can't keep up with draining this pocket, it's almost like a miniature firehose is dumping into it quicker than I can empty it. I am absolutely miserable - this is the most intense headache I have had in years. This is what my headaches used to feel like. I'm regretting taking the thiamine. I'm regretting knowing thiamine exists. How long is this going to last?

I'm laying there and I feel a whole shift in my gut, from breastbone to navel, like an active pulsing and tingling. Well, this is it, definitely going to throw up now. But I don't. Instead I get this bizarre feeling of reassurance from my gut, like "chill, it's going to be fine", and I swear to god it was like weird pulses of something? were being launched at the pressure pocket and for a few minutes my skull was an active war zone of tiny chemical bombardments with the pressure pockets filling up and little pulses of relief going off, way more active and targeted than I could ever consciously manage myself. It was like the cavalry showing up and sweeping the battlefield. And the little pulses of relief overwhelmed the pain like ocean waves swallowing a sandcastle. I fell asleep for a short while and woke up about 11pm. I could feel my gut still active and awake, like a cool tingling under my bellybutton. But the battle was done.

I've heard of the enteric nervous system - the "second brain" in one's gut that controls digestion. I've thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could talk to your second brain. "Hey, wasn't that sandwich great? You want some carrots?" But of course this is nonsense, the second brain isn't conversational.

Listen, my second brain just woke up and squished my headache for me. If I weren't present in my body and actively felt it happen, I probably wouldn't believe it. It was bizarre.

I had some really deep sleep last night and I'm fine as I sit still, but when I get up and move around it feels like someone beat me with a stick all over. I feel bruised. My brain feels bruised. I remember when my headaches were bad that I needed the second day for recovery because it felt like I got run over by a truck. Here we are again.

I'm hoping I don't get another headache this evening. So far I seem to feel fine in the morning and then it goes dogshit by the end of the day. If this is the paradox reaction, it blows. If I were working a full time job I might need to take sick time to deal with this.

Vitamin therapy paradox