Dextroamphetamine, day 1

Comments

I took my little 10mg capsule when I woke up at 8 AM, and I felt it kick in during my shower. It’s led to a feeling of clarity and less chaos in my brain. I did a few put-off chores before work, and at work I’m not feeling totally overwhelmed by stuff. I’m still not focusing on what I mean to be working on, though.

Blood pressure is 131/89, heart rate is 65. Slightly elevated from my baseline but definitely nothing to be worried about. My hands are also slightly shakier than usual but not, like, alarmingly so.

This shows some promise and I’ll be working to adjust the dosage and timing accordingly. I might try supplementing with a caffeine microdose later today.

Also, last night was my first dose of fenofibrate, which hasn’t solved all my pain issues overnight but I’d expect that to take a week or so to be effective.

Twitter alternatives

Comments

Because of Twitter’s impending buyout a lot of people are talking about alternatives to Twitter, including Mastodon. I could write a bunch of long rambles about this, but I already have:

Basically, my problem with Twitter isn’t that it’s centralized, but that it’s Twitter.

Read more…

Pain, fatigue, and focus

Comments

Two weeks since my last ketamine infusion and my anxiety is… present, again, and my chronic pain never went away at all but now I’m feeling a lot more aware of it.

I went back and tried Adderall again and it didn’t mess me up, although it also didn’t help me like it did the last time I tried it. But neither Adderall nor caffeine are messing with my blood pressure or increasing my anxiety, so I’ve reopened the conversation with my doctor regarding other meds for ADHD. In particular, I asked about Dexedrine and Desoxyn. Both of them seem promising at the dosages I’m looking at, although my insurance won’t cover Desoxyn (which is unsurprising, there was a TV series about it) so we’re trying Dexedrine first.

Regarding chronic pain, my doctor went over my chart and he noticed that we never really did anything about my high triglycerides, and then he had a thought: what if my high triglycerides are contributing to my fibro symptoms? Doing some cursory literature search found that it’s plausible, at least, so I’m also going to start on Fenofibrate to lower my triglycerides and hopefully get my body in some sort of balance there. He’s also ordered some more labwork to see if I have any gaping vitamin deficiencies.

Have I mentioned how much I cherish this doctor? Of all the doctors I’ve seen, this is the only one where I feel like he actually listens to me, doesn’t talk down to me, understands that I know my body and have done my reserach, and is willing to try things to attempt to treat these complex, deep-seated issues that have caused me problems for the past 25-odd years. It’s a lot easier to be patient as a patient when the healthcare provider treats me with respect like this.

He’s definitely a rare breed.

Ketamine 4.1

Comments

On the plus side, my focus is way higher, and my anxiety is the lowest it’s been in a decade.

On the minus side, my chronic pain still sucks a lot, and this is still making it very hard for me to do my job.

It’s still been a huge net benefit for me though. And supposedly it takes a little while for ketamine treatments to have an effect on chronic pain. I’ll get there eventually.

Lo-Fi Beats at a New Lo-Fi Price

Comments

My album crowdfunding project was going a bit more slowly than I’d hoped, but thanks to the Qrates support team we were able to come up with better pricing, and now it’s only $29.50 a copy.

Unfortunately, Qrates is unable to simply lower the price of an album, they had to cancel all of the existing preorders, so if you were hoping to buy a copy, you'l need to redo your preorder… but on the plus side now the price is much, much lower, for the same great double-length album!

I hope this makes it easier for folks to join me on this lo-fi coffee journey.

Thanks!

Closure

Comments

It has been over 10 years since the person so many of us knew as Findra passed away. I haven’t spoken much about them or the circumstances of this horrible, tragic event, which has filled me with so many complex emotions for so long, and these feelings have been destroying me. I know that Findra would not want me to be suffering in this way.

Read more…