pilz n stuff

Right. Meds are usually a boring subject, especially when old people start telling you about all the  various pilz they take & why they take them. Since that´s eggs ackley what I plan doing here, you´re forewarned.

I have three main conditions I take medication for:  emphysema, Parkinson´s Disease, & genital herpes. I´ve also had psoriasis within the past couple years. Today is the first day I had almost all my meds together, so it´s a good time to tackle the subject.

My mainstay pill is Sinemet, aka Carbodopa/Levodopa, mainly to replace the dopamine gone missing from the brain of a person with Parkinson´s. So I take 4-5 of these 100mg of levodopa (synthetic dopamine) + 25mg of carbonate (to control the reflexive nausea levodopa produces) each day plus a double at bedtime, 600 or 700 mg daily. 

In addition, with each little yellow Sinemet pill I take marijuana, almost always eaten in banana bread, brownies, cookies, or a square of chocolate -- my current favorite. This damps down all the  residual nausea which accompanies levodopa, even when it´s moderated by Carbodopa, and additionally suppresses any Parkinson´s symptoms, especially tremors and drooling, that ¨get  past¨ the Sinemet. That means I´m high most of the time, as I take pilz and chase them with little treats every 3 hours throughout the day. If Im up at 530, the meds come at 6, 9, 12, 3, & 7.

I also take glutathione twice a day (see the previous post from this past Saturday, June 21 ), in a nasal spray. Each application is 2 squirts up each side. Tilt your head back, &  notice it doesn´t taste that great. However, having completed three days on the stuff, I feel quite a difference. For example, I´m typing quickly and accurately right now, which is something I usually can´t do any more. Glutathione is a powerful brain antioxident that goes missing from the brains of Parkinson´s people. It helps impede the formation of something called homocysteine, but I don´t know what that is.

Also twice a day I take a liquid Co-Q10 for Parkinson´s and general brain function, and a supplement which doubles as a spice -- Turmeric -- 1440 mg in 2 caps/day. I usually take 2000 iu´s of vitamin D-3 twice, or three times a day, four if I remember, mainly for psoriasis, but also because doctors are pretty high on it at the moment. 

For emphysema,I just began taking Advair diskus today, a twice-a-day powder that´s already making a difference. It´s a morning/evening thing like glutathione. In between for breathing I take albuterol with ipraprium bromide, as needed or four ¨doses,¨ either from a compressed-air nebulizer or Combivent inhaler. It´s the same stuff, but the inhaler is a lot more portable.

Other than that there´s the once-a-day stuff: magnesium to control leg cramps, loratadine, an over-the-counter patent medicine to tamp down allergic sneezing and nasal water production, B-12 and multi-B vitamins, for general health and to help the glutathione keep homocysteine away. (Im not sure what that stuff is, but it sounds badass) and a nicotine patch, 21 mg applied in the morning and removed in the evening at bedtime, as a final control and symptom repressant for Parkinson´s. The final drug, missing from today´s roster of stuff I took, is Acyclovir, which both treats and prevents genital herpes. 400 mg a day is the preventive dose, and I need to get some more.

Tomorrow I´ll discuss how much of this is medicine, coverable by insurance, and how most of it, including the most expensive parts, falls outside the narrow confines of the FDA spotlight. Stayin alive in the USA when you´re old and sick is a lot easier than it used to be, but very, very expensive.