la_belle_laide (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_belle_laide) wrote2011-08-22 07:25 pm
la_belle_laide) wrote2011-08-22 07:25 pm
One time a thing occurred to me...*
I just got off the phone with Haku's other vet and we were talking about Synthroid possibly, or Chinese medicine instead of more phenobarb.
Then something sort of hit me in the head and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.
Last time Haku started having lots of seizures in a row, it was August. We raised the pheno level last year. And then here it is, August again and I'm thinking, "Well, I'm probably going to have to raise it once a year from now on."
But why twelve months? Haku doesn't know from months, and epilepsy isn't going, "Oh, right, it's month twelve, time to increase frequency." Why not ten months, or fourteen? When you take the human element of time-keeping out of it, it seems a rather arbitrary time to start kicking in again, right?
So maybe it's not a yearly thing. Maybe it's just something about August. The air pressure maybe, the temperature, or perhaps something's in bloom that he's allergic to. Or maybe it's stress that he can feel from everyone else? After all, it was August when Dad died. In fact, when he had his really bad cluster last year, it was August second, which is the exact day.
So I'm just like, Hmmm. Maybe I'll wait until the weather cools off a bit before making any decisions about raising the phenobarb. I mean I was going to do that anyway – to try the Synthroid if his free T4 and TSH come back low. (Also found out that phenobarb can in fact lower T4 levels. But I seem to remember that he was hypothyroid before he was even on phenobarb in the first place.)
Hmm, I dunno. This is just me dumping my thoughts out and keeping track of them. But of course I'll take any input from people who know more than I do about stuff.
*Title is a line from Stone Temple Pilots' "Vasoline", wtf.
Then something sort of hit me in the head and I don't know why I didn't think of it before.
Last time Haku started having lots of seizures in a row, it was August. We raised the pheno level last year. And then here it is, August again and I'm thinking, "Well, I'm probably going to have to raise it once a year from now on."
But why twelve months? Haku doesn't know from months, and epilepsy isn't going, "Oh, right, it's month twelve, time to increase frequency." Why not ten months, or fourteen? When you take the human element of time-keeping out of it, it seems a rather arbitrary time to start kicking in again, right?
So maybe it's not a yearly thing. Maybe it's just something about August. The air pressure maybe, the temperature, or perhaps something's in bloom that he's allergic to. Or maybe it's stress that he can feel from everyone else? After all, it was August when Dad died. In fact, when he had his really bad cluster last year, it was August second, which is the exact day.
So I'm just like, Hmmm. Maybe I'll wait until the weather cools off a bit before making any decisions about raising the phenobarb. I mean I was going to do that anyway – to try the Synthroid if his free T4 and TSH come back low. (Also found out that phenobarb can in fact lower T4 levels. But I seem to remember that he was hypothyroid before he was even on phenobarb in the first place.)
Hmm, I dunno. This is just me dumping my thoughts out and keeping track of them. But of course I'll take any input from people who know more than I do about stuff.
*Title is a line from Stone Temple Pilots' "Vasoline", wtf.