2016-05-27 – What to do…

Well, I thought my sleep pattern was getting better and better, but last night I was awake every hour on the hour for no apparent reason.  I wasn’t uncomfortable, and I don’t recall my wife disturbing me  (although she says that she had a lousy night’s sleep, too).  I don’t feel too bad, though, and get out of bed just after 8am.   I decide to delay turning my neurostimulator on for a little while.  I want to be sure that the dyskinesia is absent prior to switching the power on, and not simply unnoticed first thing in the morning.  I do notice it ever so slightly, especially when getting up from the sofa.  Nothing compared to yesterday, and probably not even worthy of a mention.

I switch my device on at 9.15am, just before going out to North Walsham with my wife.  By the time we return, about an hour later, dyskinesia is back in my right arm with a vengeance.  So there is some dyskinesia present when the neurostimulator is switched off, and I assume that this is surgery induced, because it wasn’t present before.  Switching my device on does appear to increase the intensity of the dyskinesia – apparently surgery induce dyskinesia usually disappears of its own accord after about 6 months, so fingers crossed that this is the case!  Tremor is still there on my right hand side, as is dystonia in my right foot, but much improved compared to my pre-surgery days.  My balance is a lot better today, so that doesn’t appear to be related to the neurostimulator.

We have company this evening – a friend of my wife is coming over with a bottle of wine.  I don’t think we have told her about my illness, and so decide to lower the voltage on the right hand side on my device, hoping that my dyskinesia will become a little less violent and distracting.  I set it to 1.6v, which is the minimum for this setting group.  Dyskinesia doesn’t disappear, but does reduce significantly.  Dystonia and tremor creep back a little.  I decide to leave the right hand side setting at the minimum while I adjust the left hand side over the next few days.  At bedtime I turn up the left hand side to 1.2v, and then turn the neurostimulator off for the night.

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