Cross purpose pharmaceuticals

In order to combat my Lyme disease, I am taking two hefty doses of an antibiotic that must be taken with food.  If you don't have a good amount of food in your stomach it is highly likely that you will vomit.  In addition, I have a powerful NSAID that I should take several times a day that has the same warnings.  That one I have actually experienced twice.  The first time because I assumed that the warning was on the same level as taking Ibuprofen, which I can gobble up on an empty stomach most of the time without any ill effects.  The resulting nausea and vomiting from my mistake taught be a lesson about heading warnings on prescription pharmaceuticals.  The second time it happened it wasn't because I had taken the pill on an empty stomach.  I learned that "with food" meant a SIGNIFICANT amount of food. 

Part of the disease symptoms that I have to deal with is my constant sleepiness, regardless of how much sleep I get.  I went through a sleep study in July that showed that there is nothing abnormal, or 'non restful', with my sleep patterns.  I was labeled with Idiopathic Hypersomnolence (meaning:  no known cause sleepiness).  To fight the sleepiness I started taking Adderall.  It's an amphetamine.  Amphetamines sap your appetite.  Part of me was looking forward to taking this in hopes that it would help me shed some pounds.  Unfortunately, I'm taking several drugs that are at cross purposes.

The Adderall diminishes my appetite.  I can easily skip breakfast when I'm taking it.  On the other hand, I need to eat a reasonably solid breakfast and then dinner to take two of my other drugs.  I have cut down on my snacking quite a bit since starting the Adderall, so I have dropped a couple of pounds.  However, it does kind of stink that I can't take full advantage of one of it's side effects to REALLY drop some weight.

By the way, when I get ready for bed, one of the drugs I take is a muscle relaxant to minimize the stiffness and potential for muscle spasms that can happen when I sleep.  I have actually injured myself, causing inflammation that takes days to weeks to recover from (see yesterday's post about injury recovery).  Usually the Adderall is out of my system by bed time, but the muscle relaxant is at cross purposes to it as well.

"Better living through chemistry" right?