This Is Weird: After-Surgery Musical Hallucinations

This is going to sound really weird...but here goes:

10 days ago I underwent my second lymph surgery in a month in the melanoma process.  After this last surgery I hear two lines from an Aerosmith song looping over and over in my mind.  And, it's a song I wouldn't normally listen to because it's not a favorite.  

It's there in my head right now as I type this, looping and looping.

Mind you, I've had those "I can't that song out of my head" moments before.  They usually go away after a short while after a distraction or whatever.  This is much worse.  It just never stops.  Just the same two lines repeating.

I'm starting to get genuinely concerned about this and I only mention it in hopes that some other cancer-surgery patient may have had this aggrevating auditory hallucination as well?  

So...am I going nuts?  Or has anyone else experienced this after surgery?

~~Dan~~

Sometimes people will frequently remember snippets of things they heard while in surgery, e.g. a joke someone told   Some surgeons like to listen to the radio or their favorite music while they operate, so you may very well have heard this song just before you went into surgery, while you were in surgery, or when you were in the recovery room.

It will take a little bit of concentration, but you may be able to block this out on your own.  Decide what you want to replace the song with - either specific lines or a passage from another piece of music, lines of poetry or prose, or even a favored mental image.  As soon as you realize that the song is "playing" in your mind, concentrate on your replacement. THen say to yourself, "oh, that's nice" (or something affirming like that) and return your concentration to whatever it was you were doing.

With practice you should require less and less effort to switch the image, and hopefully over time the process should become unnecessary.

Hope this helps!

Tre

On 11/14/2008 captaindan wrote:

This is going to sound really weird...but here goes:

10 days ago I underwent my second lymph surgery in a month in the melanoma process.  After this last surgery I hear two lines from an Aerosmith song looping over and over in my mind.  And, it's a song I wouldn't normally listen to because it's not a favorite.  

It's there in my head right now as I type this, looping and looping.

Mind you, I've had those "I can't that song out of my head" moments before.  They usually go away after a short while after a distraction or whatever.  This is much worse.  It just never stops.  Just the same two lines repeating.

I'm starting to get genuinely concerned about this and I only mention it in hopes that some other cancer-surgery patient may have had this aggrevating auditory hallucination as well?  

So...am I going nuts?  Or has anyone else experienced this after surgery?

~~Dan~~

Oh my Gosh!   Yes!  I have had music playing in my head 24/7 since Aug/2005.  (That's when I first noticed it 24/7)  When I am talking, it doesn't interfere, but when I am silent, it is always there.  I don't have to think of a song, I just have to think, "Which one is it?  Sometimes, it is just a formation of notes, playing over and over and over!!! I have had several surgeries in the past, but didn't connect it to one or the other.  I had lymph surgery in 1987 (melanoma) as well as a large tumor removed from my hip in 1997.  Then in 2006, I had thryoidectomy.  Re: the music..... I have seriously wondered if I had a brain tumor.....you know how your mind goes.... My dr. said she would do some research on it but she never did.  I inquired of a friend who does brain research at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and he nor his collegues had not heard of it.  What can you tell me that you have learned about it? 

S Louise