Yesterday I was back down to 600mg of guaifenesin. I woke up with a headache and had it all day. Really annoying. I felt like I had a hangover all day and it wouldn’t go away. This is usually a red flag for an incoming flare up. I took 900mg of guai in the evening. Within an hour and a half the headache was mostly gone. I felt like the hangover finally was mostly gone. Amazing. That’s the second time now this has worked. I didn’t expect it to either time. The advice from the support forum was to increase the dose to get through the hard times when the symptoms become overwhelming. Supercharge the kidneys to be able to purge everything out, then go back to the normal dose. I don’t think it’s meant to be every other day, but that’s where I am at the moment.
I had a long think about it last night. Do I just increase to 900? Do I throttle back and forth? I’m having AN effect at 600. Things are different at that dose than my norm. It’s supposed to increase symptoms and it is, so I’m going to assume it’s doing what it’s supposed to. I can try staying at 900 and throttling to 1200 if I need to, but for now I’m going to stay at this dose. I’ll edge it for a little while and try to keep the impending monster flare away. This is now the longest I’ve been able to stay on the medication, so I guess that’s a good thing. I’m having small flares, or the beginnings of flare, or the ramp up of a big flare, but I’ve been able to avoid the monster flare. I’m in a kind of crappy middle zone where I don’t feel good and don’t feel horrified. If I can keep away the horror, then that’s a win. The medication is supposed to reverse the fibromyalgia. There is supposed to be gain to the pain. I’ll gladly suffer through regular, mild fibro if it means I’m reversing it and helping in the future. I don’t know if I’m actually doing that though. I might need a higher dose for that. If I can keep the monster flare away for a while longer, it might start giving me confidence and I can mess with the dose later. I don’t want to take too much and cause problems, and I don’t want to run out of head room so that when the big flare starts coming, there’s no where left to go to avoid it like I (kind of) have been.
As the day is moving on, I feel the headache and hangover feeling coming back. I think the outrunning of this flare up is almost over. The disease always wins. What’s next? Jump to 1200? I have to keep that monster flare up at bay. I don’t know if it’s coming back right now or what. I’ll have to wait and see. I had a better start to the morning than what I’m having right now. Long way to go today. Right now I feel the same as I did all day yesterday. This fucking headache man. I can’t stay ahead of it. Every time I’ve had a headache like this, a major flare is about to hit. I think I have to stick with the 900 for now. I don’t know what higher doses will do to me. It could make things worse. I’m not prepared to get through a monster flare right now. If it’s mild and goes away fairly quickly, then I’ll be OK. I think I just have to endure these crappy days. If it gets like it was a few nights ago where I felt the horror coming on, then I’ll have to change the dose. For these mild to moderate days, I’ll have to push through it. It should go away and get better once it’s gone. It’s supposed to cycle, and the cycles are supposed to be difficult at first, then slowly get better over time. Even a mild or moderate flare can turn horrible if it sticks around for long enough. The cumulative effect can fuck you.