Tritherapy

Hi gang,

first of all, thanks for your words of encouragment.  It really helps me.  I feel more and more confident that I will be OK.

The tritherapy I am following lasts 28 days.  I have to take my pills at the same time everyday in order to have more chances of success.  I take them after dining at 5:15PM.   I take 2 different pills.  1 of the first and 4 of the second.  I suppose the 3 meds making the tritherapy are mixed in the 2 different pills or I don't know why it is called a tritherapy then!  The pills are huge!!  Like twice or maybe more of the size of an aspirin.  The first 2 or 3 can be digested quite easily but the last ones are always tougher.  I don't think I have ever taken such big pills before.

The side effects mentionned by the doctor were:

- headaches

- digestic "turbulence"

- diarrhea

- nausea

- fatigue.

He told me that the effects were the worst during the first week.

The first evening I took the meds, I started having small cramps and I felt stuff moving (and flowing!) in my belly.  I woke up at 1AM and I was still having small cramps and I was starting to have a headache as well.  I woke up again at 2AM and the nausea had started. I tried to vomit but it didn't work.  I felt bad but not like it was the end of the world.    However I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to go to work if I was to keep the nausea in the morning.  Fortunaltely, when I woke up only the headache was still present.  However I was not feeling so well overall, but good enough to go to work.  When I arrived at work, I had my only episode of diarrhea so far.  After that, I felt better.

Tuesday evening, I started to have some cramps again.  I woke up again during the night but didn't feel nauseous.  Wednesday morning, at the end of my shower, I started feeling nauseous again and as I stepped out of the shower I vomited my breakfast.  That was the only time I vomited so far.  Since then, I have not really had cramps or headaches and I have not felt nauseous again.  However, I notice that every morning, I have to go slower than I normally do, because I don't feel so well.  It's only around 10AM that I start feeling myself again.  Apart from that, I felt really tired one night, but that's about it.

I feel lucky that the side effects have not been really strong for me.  It helps me to stay in a good mood (relatively speaking).  I'll continue being careful in the morning and stay in bed as long as I feel it is better to stay in.