Down another medication

So here's another quickie update.

Last Thursday I finally stopped taking Nortryptlene for the first time since last September. The expert doctor I have been seeing, Dr Jain, had lowered the Lyrica I was on, down to 200mg/day. To juxtapose the decline in Lyrica, from 300mg/day, he increased the amount of Nortryp up by 25mg. Unfortunately this placed me on the hard side of taking 50mg BID. While my body tolerated 25mg AM and 75mg PM (at bedtime), the switch to 50 in the AM relaxed me too much and forced focus issues upon me. Not unyielding focus issues, just wanted to nap. With that I decided it was time, and Spring-time is in full flourish as well, to omit the medication. Doc is going to kill me when I see him, especially if I have any rebound issues, though none experienced to date. Coming up on a week now.

One of the associated benefits to not being on Nortryp, for me, is that my libido is through the roof, off the charts almost. I haven't felt this way in almost 12 years, since first encountering Rheuma Arth.

With this I'm down to 2 meds, Lyrica and Celebrex. I'm hoping to be brought down to 150 mg/day Lyrica in May. Then 100 in June. 75 in July and off as of Jul 30th. I anticipate taking long-term Celebrex for the foreseeable future to keep the Rheuma in check.

The other great benefit, I'm starting my regular life back up again. I'm walking long distances. Doing heavy work around the house. Have lost about 20lbs so far in 3 weeks through the high activity. Going to start Mountain Biking again shortly with a goal to become competitive again by summer 2010.

I hope that these are all great and sustained signs of the future life. Time will though tell.