I've changed the font color on your post to make it more readable. It was almost blended into the background for most people.

Hi there Musicwolf7. Welcome to the forum.

Reading your story is, I must say, fairly fascinating. I'm really glad you were able to find out about SPD at such a young age, when it was very rare to find anyone diagnosed with it. I, too, was diagnosed very early - at 18 months old in 1989. However, it sounds as though you grew up knowing about the disorder and how it impacted you, whereas mine was sort of forgotten and ignored for a long time (and I grew up not knowing anything about it). I'm really glad to hear your mom fought for you and was even able to homeschool. Public schools are just awful, aren't they? LOL

Your major sounds exciting. I'm not sure if you specified though, what instruments do you play? For me, it was strictly trombone. I have severe SPD that goes across the whole spectrum, so anything with strings, a lot of valves or keys, or a small mouthpiece confused me and would have been too hard for me to learn, I think. I haven't played since high school, but it was disappointing because I wanted to play on through college.

As for your question, yes, it is quite common to switch back and forth between hyper and hypo sensitivities. It's my personal belief that a majority of people with SPD experience symptoms and diagnosable issues through multiple ends of the spectrum, especially when it comes to modulation.

Also, SPD is odd in that it's not necessarily true that you always experience touch as necessarily more intense than other people. It's that you experience certain kinds of touch more intensely. For most people, it's the light touch, the gentle brushing or stroking, that is the most irritating, or the unexpected touch. Meanwhile, intense touch sensations where there is a lot of pressure or burning may not be registered at all. It's definitely a dysfunction in the way sensations are processed, so I never find it exactly accurate to say people with SPD just experience things louder or hotter. We experience all kinds of things differently, and they can at times be very hard to connect with one and other. It often doesn't seem to make sense, lol.

Anyhow, welcome again, and I hope you enjoy your time on the site.