Medicinal Compliance

I'm sure that there must be others that understand the dilemma of medicinal compliance. It is so difficult to make sure that you take this one at 8, 12 and 4 and this one doesn't make my stomach hurt if I take it right before I go to bed. Then there's one that each day I have to add another one drop to my regiment. Example: Today I take the Detox stuff at 8 drops in the morning and 8 drops in the evening and the Borrelia drops 7 drops in the morning and 7 drops in the evening. Tomorrow ... it's 9 and 9 and 8 and 8. And the Cortef is 2 tablets at 8, 1 tablet at 12 and 1/2 tab at 4. It really is a lot to remember. Not to mention if the meds make you feel kind of puny and you herx, you don't wanna take anything at all. But, I have a goal to be 100% compliant for at least one month. I'm 2 weeks in and have done everything just right. How do I do it?

Well, I'm an excel spreadsheet lover.

On the left hand boxes, I type in every single supplement or medicine that I have to take. When necessary, I create the name three times and put next to it 8am, noon, 4pm. At the top of the spreadsheet, I type in the days of the week. So let's say that on Tuesday, I need to take 2 Vitamin B's. So I find the little box that corresponds with Tuesday and Vitamin B and type in 2. That way I always know what I need to take. Anything that I don't have to take that day, I mark it out in a grey color. An example of something I might not take today that I might take tomorrow would be if I were getting a B12 shot, I wouldn't be taking the B12 sublingualy. Another example is that I haven't started the drops for Babesia or Bartonella yet, so they are all in grey.

Underneath I add in anything else that is pertinent. This is if I got an IV or HBOT or something like that and what day. Another thing is if I added something to my regiment that day. For example if I felt a UTI coming on and took Mannose Powder. It's not something I'd normally use, but I would want to keep track that I used it. Last week I felt I was coming down with something so I took extra Vitamin C and a few days of Bio Chlor Dox.

The chart helps me stay compliant and it helps me know exactly what I've taken and what I need to take. I also use this same chart to help me keep track of symptoms. On the 2nd tab, I write down on the left hand side the symptoms I've been experiencing. Headaches, Chills, Sore Throat, Twitching, Difficulty Breathing, Fatigue, etc. I have about 20 symptoms on the list, but add if any new ones come up. At the top, I have the days of the week. I label each symptom daily whether it was 0 (never occurred) to 10 (unbearable). I use different colors for each number so I know at a glance whether I felt little, mild, moderate, severe or unbearable for the symptom. So if I see a "RED" box, I know that whatever symptom that was -- it was unbearable. If my box is teal, I know I had some mild symptoms of whatever is in teal. It sounds complicated, but it really has helped me track my symptoms.

It is easier for me to see --- Oh I had a stuffy nose for 7 days this week, but it was a "mild" symptom. As opposed to having a stuffy nose for 7 days that was unbearable. If I told you that I had lower back pain for 17 out of the last 21 days, you might winch. But if I told you that on average, that back pain was mild and I only had a couple of moderate pain days -- it doesn't sound as bad. One day I may have 15 to 20 symptoms that are mild to moderate and the next I may only have 5 to 7 symptoms but they are more severe. Which is more disturbing? I have yet to decide. What I do know is that to have two days in a row of unbearable fatigue is just that - unbearable - and I will crash.

Week 1: I had 5 symptoms that at least one day rated 6 or more. My worst problems that rated 6 or more were stuffy nose, chills, headache, lower back pain and nausea.

Week 2: I had 6 symptoms that at least one day rated 6 or more. My worst problems that rated 6 or more were ear pulsing, throat bumps, headaches, sore throat, jaw pain and fatigue.

To compare the two weeks: There were about the same number of problems although they were slightly different. Week 1 I had not started the detox drops. I also had not started the Cortef yet. Week 2, I had begun both Diflucan and the Detox drops. We attribute ALL of the symptoms to the Diflucan and yeast die off.

Week 3: I had 10 symptoms that at least one day rated 6 or more. My worst problems that rated 6 or more were itching, chills, headache, fatigue, sore throat, left knee pain, numbness, twitching, leg pain and difficulty breathing.

To compare the third week to the 1st two weeks: I had a lot more symptoms this third week that on at least one day rated 6 or higher. Most of those 6 or higher numbers were 6 to 8 in ranking. Fatigue kicked my butt two days in a row by ranking 9 and 10. During this third week, I started the borrelia drops AND the cortef. I was continuing the detox drops and the diflucan. It's hard to say which symptoms are correlated to which medicines, but if I had to guess ---

Itching, Headache, Sore Throat are Diflucan related
And the rest minus the fatigue are Detox and Borrelia drop related.
Fatigue is probably Cortef related.

Just my guess. Also on my chart I leave notes about sleep. I need to know how many interuptions I have during the night, how long was my sleep and how I felt when I woke up. Did I feel rested, tired, fatigued? Did I wake up only once or was it 5 or 10 times? Did I sleep less than 5 h ours or did I sleep for 10 plus hours? Last night for example: I was so fatigued that I collapsed in bed at 8pm (this was after taking a two hour nap on the couch between 2 and 4 unexpectedly).

I didn't wake up again until 4am, but I fell back to sleep and woke up again at 7:45 (and got out of the bed because I woke up feeling very rested). So I almost got 12 hours of sleep, with only one interruption and woke up feeling rested. Considering that yesterday's fatigue level was at a 10, I needed that essentially uninterrupted 12 hours of sleep. Yet a few nights ago, I couldn't fall asleep easily. My sleep interruptions were more than 8 and I only had about 4 hours total of sleep. How do you think I felt the next day? Terrible.

Well I've babbled on enough about my wonderful excel spreadsheet. It really is a wonderful tool to use for medicine compliance, symptom chart and sleep patterns.