《Overlap》Chapter 129: Metabolic Reset
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Though it took some time, I've finally come up with a potent solution to my headache situation. Of course, it does involve some goofy configuration of existing medications. I'll just say this off to start: don't ever try this at home, and don't ever experiment with painkillers without medical advice. I only did so myself because I can be one crazy son of a bitch.
It's hard to express how amazing I feel right now! Not only have I been pain free for the fifth day in a row now, but I've also been getting a massive uncalled for confidence boost, which I'm sure is from this medication. I've accomplish about six weeks' worth of tasks in this one week alone from all the energy I have now. This is because I figured out a secret solution by pure accident.
It started weeks back, shortly after I broke down in front of Lumina about my medicine failing to work any further. I concluded that my body and metabolism process build up a full tolerance, an immunity to the same medication I needed to do well. So, I made the decision to dump the pills and pray for mercy.
The first aspect I didn't expect was how difficult of a task that proved to be. Tension Headache on its own isn't supposed to be an addictive substance, but I've been taking it daily for more than a year, and the caffeine inside those pills contributes in its own way. As a result, there are bound to be some seriously powerful withdraw symptoms. The withdraw factor includes a severe level of mental fog, slowed thoughts, and of course, powerful rebound headaches. I expected this full withdraw to reach a conclusion in about a week of time, but my predictions were unfortunately wrong.
The withdraw was much worse than I could have anticipated, and by day seven, it was at its absolute worst, to the point where I wanted to end things from the pain factor alone. Of course, that was my clear sign right there that I needed to make the emergency decision to go right back on the substance. Sad as it was, I wasn't going to put myself through that kind of danger. Turns out this kind of attachment is more of a thirty day withdraw than a seven day withdraw.
It's ultra-bad news for several reasons. For one, I can't undergo a thirty day withdraw when the pain and discomfort reaches suicide levels, not without some kind of special care or a facility, which I cannot afford anyway. In retrospect, I failed. I failed to detoxify myself from this cursed red delight. I know how important it is that I make sure not to keep taking something that I've built a 100% tolerance to.
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However, it was from this very same discovery that something unique and unexpected came my direction. The day after I put myself back onto the medication, that's when all of the positives were overdrawn again. Even though it hasn't happened to me in more than a year, the next dose pumped me full of life and energy, of confidence and totally pain free moments. My thoughts were accelerated beyond what they normally would be, yet I was able to handle all of it, maximizing my production, making me happy again. I thought it was a fluke at first, but the second day later, it happened again, then again, and the next time after that.
I had to perform weeks of experimenting to discover both what was happening and how to keep the process going. In essence, I was undergoing what few people know as a full metabolic memory reset. By having taken myself off the medicine for several days in a row, only to go back on it later, my metabolism and even my very own pain receptors were able to reset in such a way where the tolerance I built up to the medicine was just totally gone!
When I took tension headache for the first time, I felt all of the same positive side effects from it that I was feeling now, at the very same first-level intensity, all because the tolerance level then was at zero. My only conclusion was that I had reset my tolerance to the drug back down to zero. Of course, after enough days, the positive effects, including pain killing by means of prevention started to dwindle much faster. So, I came up with a new experimental process called metabolic reset.
After calculating the maximum effective time radius, I pick one day of the week, any day I want, and designate that day as a full withdraw day. I picked Sunday because it was the easiest one for all of us. For example, I would be on this medication Monday through Saturday, but then each Sunday, I would intentionally skip the medication altogether, undergoing the very painful withdraw symptoms without using any alternate painkillers to deal with it. It's rough to do, but the results are astonishing each week. After my Sunday resets, when Monday rolls around and I take the drug again, it's the same new story each time; the tolerance level to it is totally gone, reset even though it builds back up quickly over a six day period of time.
See where this is going? I didn't mean to discover such a process, but after enough experimentation weeks, I've been repeating this cycle now, over and over again, with further evidence of this successful effectiveness. Sure, I failed to detox from the medicine as I promised to earlier, but I only made that promise because we assumed the tolerance was at 100% and would remain that way forever. I bet this trick doesn't work for most other medications out there, but it's working really well for this one.
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It turns out I also have to add salt to the mix as well. I don't know why this process is sodium activated, but the medicine gets a further boost if I take in a good amount of salt 15 minutes after the dosage. I've been using half a canister of Pringles each time, since those salted chips provide an easy and convenient way to get the right amount of sodium through my system daily.
Of course, this sounds ridiculous on its own premise, which is why I don't share this information with my boss or managers. There have been times now where I was nearly late to work from being late to wake up, which puts me in a tough positions since I would take the medicine without getting in my Pringles. Believe it or not, that salt makes all the difference just as much as these reset days do. No boss is going to accept the idea that a can of chips has become medicinal for me.
I'm sure some people would look at me with shame or misguided sympathy that I'm in a terrible situation, but I couldn't disagree further with these results. Even back then, when the headaches were not as frequent as they were this year and last year, I was averaging about 3/7 headaches per week, more recently having that ratio trickle up to 5/7 days per week. That's five out of seven days where I can't do anything, half the time I can't even go to work. Ever since this reset started, though there are a couple of rare outliers, I'm now averaging 1/7 headaches per week, with at least one every time, on Sundays since that is the planned reset day. Think about the reduction!
I've never in my life been this free from headaches before, ever! On top of that, the intense side effects of thought acceleration from the caffeine further boost my productivity. Some of the negative side effects become stronger too as a result, but they're fair game in my opinion, compared to the alternative. Look at it like this. Not that long ago, I declared my living situation to be unlivable, and not only did it start to change me, it crushed any hope I had.
Now, I can finally get back to doing the things I love. I can continue my plans of panning out the future, of moving up north, working on my book series, spending more time with Lumina, everything! Sure, I have to give up one day per week to make it happen, but it's worth it to me. I now live in a reality where I only get six days per week compared to seven, but I can accomplish so much more in these six-day-weeks because of the effects. So I don't care if people think what I'm doing is wrong or dangerous. I'm sure Lumina is going to have something to say to me about it, but I don't think she will be able to argue with the results...
There's just one thing about all of this that still bothers me. In literally the same week, with all the excessive energy I now have, I spent some time researching what I could about metabolic effects on the body, and comparing notes and charts of headache-o-graphs of previously recorded data. It's still theoretical for now, but I'm seeing an unfortunate long term pattern suggesting that, the solution I've so far come up with is still in essence - temporary; it won't keep working this well forever.
I should have bought myself about two years of this bliss, the ability to temporarily reset my tolerance level to the medication that I need to live normally. After two years of time, I expect the total and overall effectiveness of this reset process to gradually dwindle down, until it stops working completely. That's the bad news; I can't keep something like this going forever. Still, that means I have two years of time to figure out an escape solution to the bigger problem. Now that I have full unrestricted access to by brain again, with the ability to really crunch numbers and come up with new creative ideas, I should be able to have a solution before that two years is up.
I'm going to start so many new projects now that I have my life back. I can learn things, create things, and I can do anything I want. I feel like I'm finally on top of the world, after having been dragged down to the bottom!
This will be the new daily routine, for as long as I need it to be.
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