Sorry for the long silence. I thought I’d posted something Wednesday, but apparently it didn’t take.”Getting up slowly,” as the football announcers say when someone’s had his chimes rung. But I should have the worst of it behind me now.
Those two nights of sleep without chemical assistance were the exception, and tolerance is starting to build; last night, even with 50 mg. of Tramadol, I didn’t sleep at all, though I got up at 4am Pacific time (7am Eastern) and didn’t get to bed until 11pm. I think my energy is a little bit better, but the sore throat is persistent. Whatever I take to deal with it causes me to cough, which tears up the throat again. It’s a losing proposition. The pain is never severe, but it’s enough to interfere with sleep.
Got the latest lab work back; Dr. Bomback reports that the creatinine number (which measures kidney function, with higher numbers reflecting diminished function) is up a little bit, presumably as a side-effect of the Entresto. He thinks it’s ok to stay on my current dose, but doesn’t want to boost it any. That leaves me with some cardiac insufficiency, enough to make a one-mile walk a significant problem. I’m going to ask Dr. Weiss if adding one or the other of the previous heard meds to the current dose of Entresto is an option; the one time I took all three on the same day (not knowing that the Entresto was supposed to replace the others) was the one day I could walk some distance at a normal pace.
Waiting to get my voice back; Dr. Sanfilippo thought three weeks or a month from a week ago. I hope that’s right, but so far there’s no progress