Sensory issues

Thank you for this post and I'll be watching the replies. The issue of change interests me a lot as I struggle to work this out. My mother seems to suggest that certain issues had a sudden switch on point for me.. 

For instance, apparently having refused to be bottle fed milk and weaned at a couple of weeks old, I apparently ate anything put in front of me until I went to school. Thereafter, I had HUGE issues with food. I can remember my first school dinner - Ugggggg! I put a piece of meat in my mouth and it felt and smelt disgusting. Thereafter any cooked food just about felt and smelt gross. My diet was severely restricted as a child and although that eased significantly as I hit my later teens, there are still some foods I just cannot eat.

I'm having a lot of sensory issues now which seemed to switch on over night when they extracted my teeth. I suddenly could no longer tolerate my husband touching me among other things.  My mother says I refused to be hugged or kissed from tiny baby hood, but most of my adult life this hasn't been an issue, and suddenly it is again.

I'd certainly say sensitivity to light has gotten progressively worse over the years.

Oh and my ability to feel pain swings between extremes. After the extractions I felt zero pain. Neither was I on any pain whatsoever 24 hour hours after my c-section. Yet, I've jumped through the roof in agony over minor stuff that wouldn't bother others.

Dawn, some things you said resonate with me. I've been exploring the correlation between when my stress levels rise and when sensory issues increase. There is a really obvious correlation between those two in me.

I've also noticed links - so a very particular sensation can link very strongly to stressful, even traumatic, events of the past, especially if that sensation was occurring around that time. Before realising I was on the spectrum I had been successfully exploring these links and I have eliminated some specific ones. Still exploring some others.

These patterns are likely unique to everyone. One thing I have studied (in formal, academic studies) is the big change in hormones post-birth - I wonder if there is a link here. For a species to survive, it makes sense that a mother could focus on caring for her baby, rather than be incapacitated by pain. Maybe this is related to hormones unique to that time such as the oxytocin surge? But how this would work in an autistic brain, I don't know, and then how it would work in each individual... I definitely wouldn't like to guess! I share these ideas in case they're useful for you like they have been for me in understanding myself better.

Dawn, some things you said resonate with me. I've been exploring the correlation between when my stress levels rise and when sensory issues increase. There is a really obvious correlation between those two in me.

I've also noticed links - so a very particular sensation can link very strongly to stressful, even traumatic, events of the past, especially if that sensation was occurring around that time. Before realising I was on the spectrum I had been successfully exploring these links and I have eliminated some specific ones. Still exploring some others.

These patterns are likely unique to everyone. One thing I have studied (in formal, academic studies) is the big change in hormones post-birth - I wonder if there is a link here. For a species to survive, it makes sense that a mother could focus on caring for her baby, rather than be incapacitated by pain. Maybe this is related to hormones unique to that time such as the oxytocin surge? But how this would work in an autistic brain, I don't know, and then how it would work in each individual... I definitely wouldn't like to guess! I share these ideas in case they're useful for you like they have been for me in understanding myself better.

Thanks. Yes indeed.