I AM SICK OF MEDICINE

How many prescription drugs do you take? One? Four? Twelve? Why do I raise this topic?  Because my meds make me sick.  Yes, I've complained about this before.  (My pharmacist says I'm not complaining - I'm merely bring to the attention of my doctors a bothersome side effect.  Let's go with that.)  Recently, I discontinued 3 meds in an effort to figure out which one is making me sick.  (Not to worry - I still have plenty of others to take.)  My doctor (I need to name these doctors like I did Bob - let's go with "The General" for my psychiatrist.  It means something to me - go with it.) . . .Anyway, The General didn't select them at random.  He took the likelier suspect away one from each of the "illnesses" they were treating: depression, bipolar and Parkinson's.  (He didn't say that - I figured it out!)  After 3 days off of those meds, I told my daughter that I could not remember the last time I felt that good.  I thought I might be on the upswing of this whole medicine thing.

Of course (well not really "of course"), being off of the depression med has caused me to have increased ---- wait ---- depression.  I don't care for that feeling, but The General thinks the Parkinson's med - Requip -  is the culprit, so in conference with my neurologist (let's call him Dr. Motion), the three of us decided to get me straight on a different Parkinson's treatment before going after the depression.  Thus I'm off Requip and not throwing up - for the time being. This is good news and not-so-good news.

Prescribing a Parkinson's medicine is tricky.  WebMD says:

Currently, levodopa is thought to be the most effective drug for controlling symptoms of Parkinson's disease and for many years was the preferred drug for treating newly diagnosed people. But because long-term use of levodopa at high dosages often leads to motor complications that can be difficult to manage, sometimes doctors use dopamine agonists (such as  pramipexole and ropinole [Requip]) to treat people during the early stages of Parkinson's disease. Using these drugs in the early stages of the disease may allow treatment with levodopa to be delayed.

That's what I was trying to do: use Requip in order to delay and minimize using lovodopa - not so much because of the motor complications - but because I want to "save" the lovadopa for later.  I took a low dose of it prior to dropping the Requip, and have increased my dosage now.  I don't care for this course because I don't want to outlive the lovadopa's  effectiveness and have nothing in later stages that helps.  It's a belief I have that may not prove to be correct.  

I can get all philosophical about a good news/bad news thing.  Good news: I'm no longer throwing up. Bad news: I'm using more lovadopa than I want.  No news: none of it may matter. Life is like that.  We have to look at the glass half empty or half full.

But.......................please, please, please.  I am not a philosophical sage - far from it.  I learn lessons the hard way - not by contemplating how much sparkling water (my drink of choice since 1/1/12) is in my glass (or, in my case, the La Croix can).  Wondering what I'm talking about?  That is in the next post.

G

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