End of first month on LDN

Now up to 3.3 mg LDN nightly. Sleeping well with some fairly creative dreaming... most of which are better than the average TV fare.

I've always been acutely aware of the passage of time and the fact that you can't bring it back for a do-over.

In my normal everyday use of time as a measuring stick time has always passed inordinately rapidly... forever flowing with great haste into the past... unstoppable... unforgiving, easily measured by the accomplishments, and/or disappointments of the time we spend awake each day, and wishing that it would slow down a bit.

Now, instead, I spend my time wishing that time would speed up a bit in order for me to be able to see or divine any increase or decrease of symptoms in a more compact period of time that might tell me whether, or not, this affliction is being affected by the LDN.

It's not all time related of course, since measurable changes in any one symptom are devilishly difficult to sense because they are so incrementally small, it all being complicated by those those changes occurring so s-l-o-w-l-y over such a l-o-n-g time frame makes them even more difficult to evaluate.

Most recently, for example, I thought that I was experiencing more difficulty in drinking with a straw since I seemed to be allowing air to be sucked in when I sucked on the straw because my lips weren't strong enough to seal properly around the straw. It's been almost a year since I've been able to drink successfully from a cup or glass or anything else without using a straw, so you can see that this issue could be pretty critical for me. About a week ago I seem to have gotten past that air leak and am now pulling liquids into my mouth successfully. But I'm really not sure it it was an escalation in the swallowing symptom, and if it was did the LDN assist in blocking or moderating this particular symptom or not.

However, once the liquid is in my mouth, easily swallowing it is another challenge. Frequently, attempts at swallowing, are just that, an attempt, over half the time, swallowing a liquid ends in coughing, or having the liquid go up my nose, or being spit out. Increased production of saliva is another of the accepted telltale symptoms of ALS and can be as big a problem as swallowing any liquid.  Swallowing solids isn't at all difficult though.

Speaking of solid food, and I'm not even sure if this is a symptom of ALS or any other neuromuscular disease or not since I haven't seen anyone else report on this little phenomenon. Sneezing! Usually at breakfast time with a mouth full of well masticated food, a strong urge to sneeze will make itself known and give me just barely enough time to get a napkin or my hand in front of my mouth before a category 5 sneeze erupts. Happened again just this morning as a matter of fact.

Since things evolve so slowly I'm changing the frequency of new posts to this blog to monthly starting April 1.