Well,
I tried weaning myself off donepezil by doing only 5 mg per day for
2.5 weeks. My estimation of my cognitive functioning seems erratic.
Sometimes OK, sometimes not so well. Then I went onto using
Huperzine-A. I noticed some regression where I couldn't plan and
make lunch properly.
On
Sunday, I had discussed the lunch menu with my wife of making curried
turkey with onions and broccoli on basmati rice which I have made
many times before. I started getting many of the ingredients
together and started opening the ground turkey when my wife came down
and saw that I hadn't gotten the onions and cut it up yet which needs
to be cooked before the ground turkey. So she helped by cutting up
the onions. Then she asked me about the broccoli which I hadn't
gotten from the freezer yet either which needed to be done before the
meats. We started cooking and then she looked around and noticed
that I hadn't started the rice which should have been the first thing
I started since that takes the longest, causing us to wait for lunch
until the rice was done.
All
this caused be to think about my huperzine so I checked my bottles
which were from a long time ago when I had wanted to try it out after
noticing some cognitive decline. I had started using it in 2011 and
then upon more research I stopped because my research said I
shouldn't be using it if I had fronto temporal dementia or may be on
sertraline anti-depressants. That was after the doctors at McLean
hospital diagnosed me as depressed and I thought there was a
possibility of Pick's disease (from my PET scan report) and
Alzheimer's wasn't even in the picture. So I stopped taking
Huperzine back then. Now I had these three bottles of Huperzine-A
and wanted to try them out now without looking for an expiration
date. They were manufactured 4/2011 and research shows they have a
shelf life of about two years if kept in a cool place. So I had to
order some and go back on donepezil in the mean time.
For
an examples of cognitive issues on 5 mg donepezil (half dose), on
Tuesday, I made coconut macaroons and then tried to make a pumpkin
pie. Both of those I have made many times before. The macaroons
were fine. A simple recipe. The pumpkin pie I messed up because I
had turned on the oven to preheat and it beeped and I wasn't done
prepping the filling. I rushed and I forgot the evaporated milk in
the filling. It was pretty thick and didn't look right pouring it in
but I ignored it because the oven was ready and I was using canned
pumpkin instead of my usual cooked frozen pumpkin that I had saved
from Halloween. Its edible but not the same. This was when I was on
5 mg of donepezil taken 3 hours earlier. So you can see that at 5 mg
my cognitive functioning is still spotty.
Regarding
the neurologist's recommendation to do more socialization I went to
the senior center to socialize with more seniors. I played billiards
with someone on Monday and won three games and went to a billiards
tournament on Tuesday afternoon to forget my baking mistake. Things
went well at the tournament socially. Not so well playing wise. In
the practice game I got one ball in and during the tournament I did
better but I lost both games in the first round. I think I need some
more practice though there was talk about me joining a Holliston
billiards team.
I
will update next time when my shipment of Huperzine-A arrives and I
try that for a week.
