It has been quite some time since I have written partly because life is just so crazy and partly because well, life is CRAZY! Anyway!
Mom is doing so much better of late. Why? Well, at Dad’s urging, back in May of 2010 she began taking large doses of Niacinamide (B3) – 250 mg every 3 hours. He read in one of his medical journal subscriptions about how it is used to cure Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. But it also seems to affect mental illness as her anxiety levels have come down to what I would call normal, like most of us deal with.
The result is that she is less stressed – more “with it” – more cooperative. While she still hurts as much as ever (I suppose), she is dealing with it less emotionally using the usual pain meds and not craving more. How can I say it… she is just more reasonable – doesn’t take her meds at the first instance of pain but is willing to see how the pain goes. In a way she is managing her pain better than ever.
Since there is no known toxicity levels when taking B3, he had her take it every two hours. Within a month, she was noticeably more interactive, more able to reason; to think.
The fall-out though, is that she is more able to decide what she wants to do with her life. This is very frustrating for Dad after so many years of him just telling her what to do. She seems to be her own person for the first time in years, even since I’ve known her. While he is glad she isn’t losing her mind to dementia, his old chauvinist leanings are being taxed to the limit. The irony of all the years of his searching for a cure for her pain is that he didn’t think of the ramifications.