My private March madness

After 5 months of an aggressive campaign to combine cognitive therapy with Stroke awareness, I've hit yet another rough patch [a.k.a. plateau] with my Spasticity<-> Sciatica. This painful chicken and egg enigma has befuddled both neurological and orthopedic therapies. Latest course is being plotted by a pain management specialist who sees indications of both spasticity and disc related sciatica. This most recent neurological exam,however provided a few insights and phrases that are almost too comic not to share: a "mild flattening of the nasolabial fold on the left" explains the facial expression I'm sporting that has been inviting strangers to ask me if I need help -and has me either drooling or feeling like I am. Then the
"increased tone in upper left and mild pronator dift."Picture -if you'd be so imaginatively kind - an upright, but heavily sedated Dr. Strangelove[video sample below]. The mild pronator drift explains the unsightly pose in which I'm often stuck -see stance I'm holding in pic above as illustration of why my left arm and flank are exhausted and in spasms at days end.


Given lack of progress over the past two years with multiple approaches he's proposed a modest adjustment to medications as an experiment before considering more aggressive i.e. surgical option for disc problem. So, here's the drill over the next 14-21 days:

Add new medication called Lyrica - prescribed in low doses for neuropathic pain or at high dosage levels for intermittent seizures [i.e. seizures like mine not attributed to epilepsy]

I'm gradually introducing this additional, new drug @150/day-> 300 Mg on top of my existing pharmaceutical panoply that includes a morning and evening 500MG dose of the anti-seizure drug Keppra.

If I can tolerate steps 1 &2 [150->300MG doses ] of this experiment w/Lryica, I might then have option of a gradual removal of wet-blanket-on-the brain Keppra from the mix.


Challenge with this experiment?

The cognitive trauma invoked by inserting a new gladiator into the battle waged on my brain blood frontier each morning....The good news? I've survived a few failed experiments of this sort before, so I have both perspective and adaptive strategies.

I CAN and WILL deal with this; just a few white-knuckled and lay-low days comprised of solar naps and short walks around my familiar routes of Austin's 2nd street district for a little latte and brief chats with friends {more accurately-stoically patient acquaintances} I've cultivated along this appointed route. So there you have it: a few Patches of fog, but my Vita Est Dolce.

Chance are that my cagey point guard Ritalin will eventually negotiate a "head-fake" and spin past the heavy footed twin towers Keppra & Lyrica- agents of my private March Madness.


As a reward for anyone who scrolls this far [no good deed goes unpunished does it?] here's a link to a video excerpt from Kubrick's masterpiece parody of the US <-> Soviet MAD doctrine - explains MY association between the "left pronator drift" and Herr Dr. Stangelove