This is not good news for one of our most troubled sufferers. A young woman in her late 20s, whom I will call “X,” has struggled with the stuck music approximately since the birth of her second child. Now a distressing new symptom has popped up.
Over the years I have known her through our correspondence, I have seen her mental capacity decline because of the incessant songs playing in her head and the lack of sleep this causes. She has been to numerous doctors, none of whom have the first clue as to how to treat this phenomenon.
We did determine (through a home saliva test) that her cortisol levels were elevated. But she cannot take the Relora that can help lower cortisol because it made her too groggy. She is apparently hypersensitive to all substances.
Now she has developed a symptom that clearly seems to be a form of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Most neurologists consider the stuck music (also called “ear worms,” “broken record syndrome,” “auditory memory loops/AMLs,” or “musical hallucinations”) to be a form of OCD.
They may be right, though I have been able to control mine by manipulating my hormone replacement therapy, which suggests that it may be important to find out what impact hormone levels have on OCD in general.
The symptom that X has now developed involves the compulsion to breathe into her hand to smell her breath. I haven’t heard of any other AML sufferers developing additional OCD symptoms but I suspect it is quite possible and they may simply have not made the connection or bothered to mention them.
If any of you have more traditional obsessions or compulsions in conjunction with your stuck music/AMLs, let us know.
And if you’ve tried drugs (or any other solutions) for OCD and have found relief, please share with us so that perhaps people like X can find some peace.
For me, the holidays have always been torturous because of all the music played everywhere you go. Thanks to my new hormone regimen started around this time last year, this is the first year in 12 that I haven’t been plagued with the holiday music being stuck in my head. I earnestly wish the same peace for all of you in the new year.
Happy holidays to you all!
Thanks for posting this – I just wanted to drop in with another little update (I can’t recall if I ever gave my final update) I figured out what was causing my relentless ALMs – Klonopin and other benzos. I’ve been off for almost 7 months and after having these ALMs the duration I was on benzos (over 2 years), they are now gone. The benzo support group I’m a part of all could relate to this symptom of mine.
hello im hoping someone can get back to me on this. I have had music stuck CONSTANTLY in my head and am so desperate for someone who has the same problem to contact me because the severity to which I have it seems like its rare. I really need support from someonelse. Its easy to go to the doctor and say i have bipolar or psychosis or whatever but with this. They look at you and have no idea about what you are talking about. My e-mail is autumnmills@hotmail.co.uk. Please could someone send me an e-mail thanks
Yup, I got the broken records and all manner of OCD tics and stuff. Cognitive behavioural therapy helped tone them down, but they never go away. If I stop one I move on to another.
And Spotify is making my broken records play hard. Dammit!
I remember being six ans wanting to scream ‘cos I couldn’t get a Kylie Minogue song out of my head for weeks and it was torturing me. Then ironically a few years ago she came out with that song… Damn, now I’ve mentioned it, it’ll get stuck. No, must fight it!
I have had music playing in my head for as long as I can remember. I also began exhibiting symptoms of OCD as an infant (although I wasn’t diagnosed until I was a teenager). Although the music usually plays in the “background” of my mind, increasing anxiety will cause the music to increase in volume/intrusiveness. I also experience getting stuck on a certain song and being unable to switch tunes, although turning on a radio or CD will often help, at least for a few hours. I have no idea what life is like without music playing in my head. Whenever I need to do something that requires concentration, I turn real music on (usually something I’m already familiar with that doesn’t require me to pay attention to it) and that seems to distract the music in my head, which now follows along with the recording. It’s useful for when I need to work. I also hear voices in my mind, but they aren’t the type heard in schizophrenia. They aren’t consistent, identifiable, or even speaking to me. I just catch sound non-sense bites as they chatter along incoharently. When I have insomnia, sometimes it’s helpful to try to focus on them. However, like with the music, the voices become very loud and irritating when I’m dealing with anxiety. It’s like having a loud TV in the room, and one that’s constantly flipping channels so that I hear one voice speaking a few words, then another perhaps saying an entire sentence, then yet another delivering only a single word. The only thing that has helped me is SSRIs. Regarding your friend, breath smelling fits right in with OCD symptoms such as checking. Hopefully someone can get her to see a skilled psychiatrist. Therapy can help with the compulsions, but only medication can actually reduce the obsessions and turn down the music.
Wow, I get the snippets of conversations in my head too! All different people conversing, and they don’t speak like me. It’s like hearing a few words from the middle of a conversation. I’ve realised I can kind of lend it my mouth, and I can speak the words they’re saying as they’re saying them. Have you tried that?