Dreamer Easy

I take a bucket of medicine every day. Let me explain how one of them works: Questran. The body makes bile to help with digesting fats; like detergent, it breaks them up into small particles, making it easier for your digestive enzymes to work on them. Once bile's task is done, the body reabsorbs it. But in my case, the part of my plumbing that's supposed to reabsorb it doesn't work*. If you can imagine what might happen if you drank a bottle of detergent, you've got an idea of the effect. Anyway, the Questran's job is to grab onto the leftover bile**, preventing it from irritating my innertube.

Now the problem is that Questran grabs onto anything it can get a hold of, including other medications - not every single one, but you're supposed to take other medication an hour before you take Questran, or four hours afterwards, leaving a wide safety margin***.

I have to take Questran as soon as I get up. I've been taking Aropax, my antidepressant, at the same time. I think the Questran has been absorbing some of the Aropax - not all of it, because otherwise I'd have obvious withdrawal symptoms. But just enough depression is leaking through right now for me to notice the change. I even shed tears during Song For Ten while I was on the chest press thing in the gym.

Moving the Aropax from bedtime to the morning has literally changed my life. I'm sleeping properly and remaining awake and alert through the day for the first time in months - years, really. I just need to remember to take the blasted stuff with my elevenses.

* I recently found out my condition is called "idiopathic bile acid malabsorption". House fen will recall the meaning of "idiopathic" :-)

** Questran is cholestyramine, an ion exchange resin. In a way it's pretty crude stuff. Annoyingly, it's dispensed as a powder which must be mixed with water, which means I have to carry a bottle of water and a cup around with me. Some of you will certainly seen me mix it up and drink it.

*** Including The Pill!

I am pathetic. Due to the missed Aropax, today I'm tired and groggy. I haven't gone to work (luckily - of necessity, really - I work casually, and so can move my days round a bit) and I'm so knackered that just taking some laundry round the back was like a triathlon. This is on top of being completely annihilated for over a week due to the early starts for Akkadian school, which on one particular day saw me napping desperately on both the classroom floor and later the office floor.

My shrink explains I'm one of a small percentage of folks taking antidepressants who get the rare side effect of drowsiness. Sometimes I'm absolutely fine, sometimes I spend all day fighting against the blear. It stops me from working, from writing, from exercising, from looking after this dump. If I had to work full time, or had kids or something like that, or had to drive anywhere, I would be severely encreeked and paddle-free.

In summary, the most important factors have been lack of peer pressure, concern about interactions with medications, and mental elf.
( A more detailed survey )
I bet you were all gagging to know.

4.30 am. Gripped by insomnia and nursing a scratchy throat, the Ormazoid slithers forth from the bed. An hour later, too knackered to do anything useful, she is still looking at HBP spoilers.

( Official feeling sorry for myself list of illnesses )