Backing off the Minocycline by 1/2 for a bit

Michele has been feverish over the past couple of days - low grade at ~99 degrees. This is not a fever in any of the common medical circles, but for Michele this is almost 2 degrees above her 97.3F optimal temperature. Anything above that and dysphagia, slurred speech, confusion, lethargy, spasticity, etc. set in.

We had a day out with the kids yesterday watching them play miniature golf and having fun. She was having a hard time then too, and today was not up to getting out of bed, complaining of that pre-seizure aura (upset stomach for her) and some facial twitching that we have come to learn means to get a lorazepam under her tongue quickly to ward off any seizures.

So we watched a movie in bed today and she caught up on some sleep. I took the opportunity to nap for as much of the the day as I could too.

Because of the apparent worsening of symptoms over the past few days, I think it is prudent to cut back on the Minocycline by 1/2 - maybe this is a Herxheimer Reaction, maybe she is just fighting off some bug going around, or maybe this is just a temporary flareup of the damage in her brain's temperature control region that we have seen over the years.

So I am going to follow more of a rheumatic minocycline protocol that uses a bit lower dose than the 100mg twice daily that she has been taking since April 24th - for 2 weeks.

Meanwhile the Low Dose Naltrexone is being tolerated better - or maybe the low grade fever is just sapping her energy and masking any endorphine modulating effects on her emotions. The great news is that we did correlate low blood sugar with this emotional volatility by the end of last week, and I can surely relate to that hypoglycemic anger effect - as it affected me (or should I say my friends and family) very dramatically from my teen years onward. Thus, Michele will follow a more hypoglycemic diet this week and we will see if that helps keep the peace at home.

To see reference articles that are current and referenced in my blogging, go to my research clipping site:

http://del.icio.us/bryanwatson

Some good research and articles that you can find linked there:

Low Dose Naltrexone
http://del.icio.us/bryanwatson/ldn

Minocycline
http://del.icio.us/bryanwatson/minocycline


...also available from my main blog page in the upper right corner.