Nothing that a Little Drug Couldn't Cure

I've been on the full dose of 200mg Zonisamide per day for over two weeks now and I'm comfortably floating away. Higher than a kite?

Well, that's a little bit hyperbolic. But it's just that it is so relaxing.

I like it, it's working on my neck and my back feels better.  Which is a bit of a problem when I need to focus and work on one of my programming assignments. 

There have been memory glitches, and some slowness of mind.  Not all of which can be attributed to Zonisamide.

I'm an old guy.  Suffering from post-chemo brain rot.  What am I to do?



  

Zonisamide to the Rescue

I'm up to 200mg of Zonisamide a night, and the nausea is trivial.  Feeling much better, with headaches brief and infrequent.  I do take a Skelaxin almost every day because like most treatments, even this one is not consistent.  

At night when I want to fall asleep and not feel any pain I have some Tizanidine 4mg tablets that I can take. 

Between the Zonisamide, Gabapentin, Tizanidine and whatever else is in my little grab bags of pills, I can sleep and not be disturbed by headaches ever again.

Since I've been in remission for over two years, the two remaining problems have been the headaches, and  the fact that I don't have a great deal of energy.

I think I've got the right mix of drugs to deal with the headaches.  August 2nd I have a sleep study to see if I have sleep apnea, and sometime later I'll have a session with the Anesthesiology and Pain Clinic at UNC and they can look for little nerves to zap in my neck.

That should pretty much fix the neck problem.

The energy issue is that I have perhaps not been healing because I have not been sleeping well.  The Gabapentin helps with that, but the sleep study, if I find that I have sleep apnea will help a great deal.

I don't look forward to being connected to a machine for breathing at night.   How ghastly.

It is working

The Zonisamide is working.  I doubled the dose on Friday to 100mg (two 50mg capsules) and the nausea is not what it was.  It's not only working but I feel better (as in not so sick to my stomach). 

Of course at this I know better than to eat anything that might upset my stomach after dinner.  The Zonisamide does give me a feeling like my stomach is going to complain and if I only ate something it would feel better.   Not a good idea to give in to that feeling.

So I don't feel a headache until the afternoon; and today it was until 6:00PM.

I do take a Diclofenac 50mg in the AM whether I need it or not. Can't be too careful.