Octreotide Trial one week on.

Sorting my syringes for the day.

I'm one week into my octreotide trial and things have not  been going swimmingly. Over the course of the last week I have been developing some nasty side effects of the gastrointestinal kind. Last night I was awoken at 230am and over the course of the next 6 hours I barely left the bathroom.

Over the last week I have been managing to inject myself 2-3 times a day. I was struggling with it initially, not because of having to inject myself but the issue with eating regularly. I learnt years ago to avoid post prandial hypotension to avoid where at all possible eating lunch. At school I would struggle to stay awake after lunch. At university I would regularly fall asleep in the lecture theatre and snore, loudly. This issue followed me into my workplace and to avoid falling asleep in front of a room full of new employees, avoiding lunch was the only thing I could do.

My post prandial hypotension could almost be described as a kind of narcolepsy, I can't keep myself awake. I have no choice in the matter but to go to sleep. Fighting it makes me feel extremely ill. My eyes roll to the back of my head, my speech becomes slurred and I can not put off the inevitable, I go to sleep. My blood pressure drops so low I awaken confused, not knowing where I am. Nine times out of ten I will initially believe I am back at my parents house, a place I haven't lived in since 1996. My confusion can last a few minutes to an hour and it is terrifying. Out of all the horrid symptoms I endure this is the worst. It will reduce to me to tears on a regular basis.

As you can imagine, after last night, I was deflated ( pardon the pun) , exhausted and in pain. However due to the amazing results I had experienced I wasn't ready to throw the towel in just yet. I was wobbling psychologically and feeling a bit sorry for myself but I was determined to carry on.

After what can only be described as a hideous night, out of the blue my consultant rang me to find out how I was doing and to make arrangements for the tilt table test I was due to have on Tuesday 22nd April. On hearing of the disastrous night I had endured, he decided a tilt table test wasn't going to be a good idea. I have been advised to halt the injections today (Monday 21st April) and resume tomorrow starting off again with one injection a day. I am to continue with one injection a day until I ring his secretary on Friday and let her know how I am doing and a decision will be made from there.

Some of my cyber friends are on this medication for PoTS alone and have been advised not to take it at meal times as there is an increased risk of side effects - wind (gas) , bloating, diarrhea, constipation and nausea. With post prandial hypotension the whole point is I take it with meals. However I am suffering with all but one of the side effects - constipation. How last night I wished that I was suffering with constipation!

I will see how the week goes and maybe if there is no joy I will use the drug to treat my PoTS rather than post prandial hypotension. As the drug works so well I am happy to currently persevere as long as I don't have a repeat of last night.

It maybe that I can only tolerate one injection a day without incurring the wrath of the octreotide god. If thats the case my post prandial hypotension is always at its worst at lunch time for some reason. If I could obliterate that symptoms with little or no side effects that would be an enormous leap forward.