Thursday, September 1, 2011

Dosing to keep the ol' GI tract working...

After last week's disaster, I figured I must be doing it wrong.

I looked at my bottle of Reglan (so funny that I thought it was Ragalin, most likely because of the folksy pronunciation in Arkansas!) and checked the dosing instruction.  It was carried over from when it was prescribed to me as anti-nausea (probably coming out of a bone marrow or something with anesthesia) where it said to take one pill the night before "your procedure" and another the next day.

Because of this imprecise instruction, and based on the suggestion of JA, one of the physician assistants, I had taken one on Tuesday evenings (with my dex) and one the next morning, and one the next night.

This approach failed miserably last week.

So I use the Google Machine on the Interwebs and found that when prescribed for gastroparesis (med-speak for "gut shuts down") one takes one pill 30 minutes before each meal, then again at bedtime.

I tried that approach this week, and it seemed to work better than last week, certainly. 

In other news, fraternizing with the children of other parents for a few days in a family resort has led to me getting sick.   No big surprise there.   I am hoping I caught it early enough and started taking Tamiflu in time to cut off bronchitis.  So far, day three of sickness, just a tiny dry cough to go with the nasal stuffiness, swollen glands and sore throat.   Time will tell.

There is a silver lining, though: proof positive that I must continue my policy of avoiding the enormous fair at my daughter's school!