Three Star Night

A month ago I announced that I was starting an experiment, and I would announce the results in a month if successful or earlier if it proved unsuccessful.  Well, clearly a month has passed without any news, and I can now say that the experiment was indeed successful!  The experiment itself?  Two months ago I started lowering the dosage of my TS medication, and for the last month I have been completely off the drug.  There were minimal side effects; in fact, during the first week off the medicine, I felt fantastic.  (The following inset text is mainly to satisfy my physiology background.  Feel free to skip, but I'll do my best to make it easy enough for a lay person to understand):

Dopamine is a neuromodulator, which for our purposes means it is a chemical found in the brain that effects the way the brain functions.  With regards to movement, it can either encourage movement or disinhibit movement (ie remove inhibition of movement, allowing for more movement).  Simply, dopamine can work in different ways, but the end result is always the same- more movement.  Since tics are excessive, unwanted movements, it makes sense that blocking the effects of dopamine may help alleviate the tics.  ("May" is the word here because the neuroscientists and neurologists aren't entirely sure how all this works.)  

The TS medication I took was primarily a dopamine type 2 receptor inhibitor, which means it blocked the effect of dopamine in certain pathways, including but not limited to the movement pathway.  The thing is, dopamine is everywhere in the brain and effects a lot of things besides movement.  Blocking dopamine is kind of like giving a cancer patient radiation therapy.  It's hard to remove just what you want because other areas of the body become adversely affected.  (It's not the best example, I know.  I would never compare being a TS patient to being a cancer patient, but with the prevalence of cancer these days, I think it is something that most people can understand.)  For me, the dopamine blocker did the trick; it alleviated my tics.  However, the tic relief also came with many side effects.  This is why I decided to see if I would be able to get off the medication.

 At any rate, I went through finals week and a few other stressful experiences without being on the medication.    My symptoms haven't gone away; I just don't need medication to manage them right now.  I've ticked here and there, but I only had one major outburst, which was understandable given the situation.  I don't think medication is bad, and the possibility exists that I might need it again in the future.  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Right now He's given, but if He takes away again, I'll trust that it's for the best, even if it's not the easiest.  But for now I thank God that my symptoms are more or less under control, for the common grace of modern medicine, and that my family has medical insurance.

For additional reading, see my other post on my experiences with TS.