All going well with fuel supplies (doubtful though that is at the moment with what’s going on in the Middle East), our planned year for 2026 is quite busy. We’re due to fly to Adelaide for a wedding in April. We’ll be leaving on the Tuesday after Easter, and will be in South Australia for eight nights. When we return, it’ll be a little over a month before we leave for our 3 1/2 month road trip up to Darwin to visit our son, and daughter in law.

I’m hoping to have a slightly reduced dose of Dopomine Agonist established, and to have adapted to it, prior to either of those trips.

I’ve been taking my iron pills as per the Doctors recommendations, and have delayed the timing of taking my Dopomine Agonist dose until somewhere between 6pm and 7 pm. When I was taking my dose at 4 pm, by 7pm I was almost always asleep on the sofa. It made me very drowsy. With the delayed dose the restlessness in my legs has started to act up before the medication gets a chance to make me drowsy. Consequently for a couple of hours in the evening, instead of sleeping I have been doing all manner of exercises in front of TV in order to try to alleviate, and to distract my mind from the restlessness in my legs. Whilst this is most likely a bit distracting for Paul, who is trying to happily relax for an hour or two before our 9pm bedtime, it is probably better for me than being zonked out for the 2 – 2 1/2 hours before our bedtime.

I’m due to have my blood tests at the end of April to test my ferritin levels. This will mean I won’t be able to schedule a Doctor’s visit to get the results until at least the end of the first week in May. That’s getting too close to our May departure date for our caravan trip to Darwin. My thoughts have been that if I try a slight reduction too close to our trip, and if I have an adverse reaction that lasts a while, sharing a small caravan is going to me out of the question. In my own home if I have an adverse reaction I can at least take myself off to another bedroom where I can kick, curse, and cry through the worst of it without disturbing Paul.

From everything I’ve read, I don’t have a lot of faith in any of the Medical Profession here in Western Australia to have the nous to know the ins and outs of withdrawing from Dopomine Agonists. Especially so, as they didn’t have the nous to prevent me from getting the stage of addiction that I find myself with. Admittedly they have a lot of things to deal with and to keep up with, and most likely this isn’t an issue at the top of their list. However, it is an issue at the top of my list!

So, I’m setting my own time line for withdrawing from this horrible drug, a timeline that is hopefully going to fit in with our plans for 2026. Accordingly I’ve reduced my dose of Sifrol from 2 x .25 mg pills, to 1 and 3/4 x .25 mg pills. That’s a 1/8 reduction. I had expected to barely feel this slight reduction. Not so. Last night was my fourth night with this slight reduction. I took myself off to another bedroom around midnight last night when I kicked, cursed, and cried for around 3 – 4 hours before finally falling into a near to consistent sleep. I normally wake around 5am and start my day. But today I was so exhausted after such an awful night that I stayed asleep until after 6.30am. That’s a very late morning for me.

I’m hoping I can settle to this slight reduction before we leave for South Australia in just over three weeks. In South Australia I won’t have the luxury of being able to take myself off to another room. It’s bad enough one of us suffering through bad nights, no need for two of us to suffer!

All going well, I’m hoping to be able to reduce down another 1/4 dose when I return from South Australia. If I can do this shortly after our return I’ll have enough time to settle into it before we leave for our caravan road trip, I hope. I wouldn’t contemplate any reduction, no matter how small without having another end of the house to retire to while I settle into it.

That’s providing I settle into the reduced doses. At the moment I’m not through a good time. My nights are tortuous. During the day I’m light headed with lowish blood pressure (around 100 over 55, sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a big lower). I have very little motivation to do much of anything, and am feeling a bit ‘flat’. So that’s how I am after my fourth night with a slight reduction in my Dopomine Agonist dose. Hopefully, I’ll start to settle soon.

(please excuse any errors in this. I have proof read it, but frikken WordPress is so difficult to use these days. No matter what I do I can’t seem to get an entry for my cursor in order to make any corrections. This site is so frustrating to use these days).