Starting My Experiment Today

Well, today is day one of my "experiment."

Instead of further decreasing my Cesamet by .5mg today, I am increasing it by .5mg -- so I am again taking 4mg a day while I should have reduced to 3mg per day.

We'll see if this bump in the dose is enough to induce the abdominal discomfort on eating that I've had for the past five months (I haven't had that pain for the past week).

Perhaps one bonus I'll get from the increase in the Cesamet dosage will be a bit more pain relief?

One can only hope.

If everything goes according to pattern, I should know by Friday of this week if Cesamet has been a factor in my gut issues.

In any event, I'll stay at this higher dosage for two weeks (until February 22nd) unless the gut pain and discomfort returns with enough clarity that we can absolutely point to Cesamet as the culprit.

If that happens, I'll immediately resume the dosage reduction schedule.

If there is no return of the abdominal discomfort by February 22nd, I will again bump up the Cesamet by a further .5mg per day (which will return me to the 4.5mg per day that I was at when the doctor started the reduction).  And by the time I see the doctor on day four of that dosage, if I am not experiencing the abdominal discomfort (and, by then reduced appetite), I think it would be safe to assume that Cesamet was not a factor.

Whatever my findings, I will discuss my experiment with my doctor when I see him on February 25th (and I'll take the lumps he dishes out when he realizes that I'm not nearly off the Cesamet at that point).

It is at that appointment that I will also get the results of the pelvic ultrasound that was done to rule out anything sinister with my ovaries (indications are that that too yielded an 'all normal' result) as well as the MRI that was done on Saturday to see if we can identify the cause of my hip pain.  That issue continues to perplex my doctor and is the reason why he prescribed Cesamet in the first place!

Oh yes, before that visit, I will also have been to see a neurologist.  That's an appointment that I requested though, following my seizure last October.  I have not been in the care of a neurologist for several years and under the circumstances, I thought it might be prudent to re-establish that line of medical care.  Back in 2005 I had been sent to see a very nice, easy-to-talk-to specialist who reassured me that certain new symptoms that I was experiencing had nothing to do with nerve deterioration and everything to do with the many medications that I require to keep me functioning (asthma, epilepsy, fibromyalgia -- my arthritis continues to remain on the untreatable list).  There ensued a rejig of prescribed medications and symptoms settled down.  So I asked my doctor to refer me to the same guy to 'follow-up' on the EEG that was done in October.  I'm actually looking forward to that appointment because I have a plan for him too!