Month: March 2005

The wonderful morning was soon ruined when my morning dose of medicine knocked me out and had me crawling back into bed. A few hours later I’m able to get back out. So obviously some of that medicine was *not* good for me. I also take Wellbutrin SR regularly. I was supposed to go back to the doctor for a followup this morning, so when I got un-comatose again, Maggie and I went over to see him. The doctor thought the antihistamine was the problem, and he didn’t want to take it out so instead he suggested I try just half instead. On top of that he noticed that he had under-prescribed one of the medications for me. He had prescribed for 60kg weight and I’m more like 100kg. And on top of that he added a new medication to the mix. He also told me only about one of the antihistamines in my set of medication. I should probably mention that we have National Health Insurance here, so I just pay about US$5 for doctor’s visit and medication, total, no matter how many medications the doctor prescribes.

So this time when we went downstairs to the pharmacy I made them write out what each and every thing was. Here is what I got sent home with today:

prednisolone – steroid (increased dosage)
ambroxol – reduces mucus viscosity
ibuprofen – pain-reliever/fever-reducer/anti-inflammatory
dextromethorphan – cough suppressant
pseudo-ephedrine – decongestant
carbinoxamine – antihistamine
diazepam(valium) – anti-anxiety
chlorpheniramine – antihistamine
noscarpine – anti-cough/anti-cancer
fenoterol – relaxes windpipe to breathe easier (added)

Presumably he added the fenoterol so I wouldn’t wake up choking on snot again.

So instead of just gulping down my pills, I did some drug interaction research. From what I found on the web, Wellbutrin interacts poorly with antihistamines and dextromethorphan. Opinions seem mixed on pseudo-ephedrine, but I was taking that before without problem. So for now I’m going to take out the two antihistamines and the dextromethorphan, and switch the ibuprofen to naproxen sodium which works better on me. The pseudo-ephedrine was combined in one pill with the antihistamine carbinoxamine, but I have some pseudo-ephedrine only pills here, so they can substitute. We’ll see how that works out. Next time I’ll have to make sure to say I’m allergic to antihistamines and dextromethorphan. And I’m definitely getting them to list out the medications and do my own research first before taking it.

Woke up today with no congestion, and other symptoms seem to be subsiding. Yay.

Then spending 20 minutes trying to get rid of it all.

Finally went to go see the neighborhood ENT Doctor today since my cold does not seem to be getting better any time soon. Got prescribed eight different medications including valium. So, um, I might not be too active for the next few days what with being drugged up and all.

Until then, check out http://deathball.net/notpron/ which is a devilishly clever and addicting series of puzzles. The first couple are pretty easy but then they get harder. I’m only up to level 10 of 107 so far. Good luck.

Even after taking a Naproxen Sodium before bed, woke up with a fever of 38.4C (101.1F) in the middle of the night. Took another and it was normal this morning.

Since I kept her awake half the night coughing up a lung, my wife pronounced me unfit to travel, so I’m staying home instead for two days of blessed quiet.

Feeling much better than yesterday, but still hacking up a lung and my nose is running even after taking oxymetazoline spray which usually dries things right out for me. Tomorrow we’re going down to Tainan for Tomb Sweeping Day and come back on Sunday. We’re gonna take the bus down tomorrow and for some reason return by plane on Sunday. Actually Tomb Sweeping Day is not for more than a week, but we usually go early to avoid the crowds. I’m not looking forward to going with a bad cold, but unless I can’t get out of bed like yesterday, I’ll have to slog through. Also looks like we won’t be going through Kaohsiung this year, so no Fried Fish Soup from Liuhe Night Market. 🙁 I’ll have to try to get us to go to the one in Tainan, but my favorite is the one from Kaohsiung.

Tuesday night I noticed I was getting a bit of a sore throat. Yesterday it got a bit worse and I was a bit tired. This morning feels like someone scraped off the inside of my throat plus I have a headache and achy all over. So far I’ve gotten off fairly easy with fairly minor illness this season, but looks like this one is gonna knock me on my ass for a few days. Was supposed to go look at commercial property rentals today. I stumbled out of bed to tell my wife I really didn’t think I could make it today. She told me my business partner called earlier and she’s too sick too, so just bagged those plans. Emily is also a bit sick as well. I think I’ll head back to bed again.

In case you don’t notice that little padlock icon, this is a friends-only post.

You may have noticed that I’ve been a bit circumspect in several of my posts about my new business. I don’t want to give out too much detail to just anyone who comes visiting. Most of you already know this, but for those who don’t, the new business is a donut shop and/or donut production shop in Taipei. I ask that you please be discrete about sharing this information and also in any comments you leave.

Yesterday my business partner and I went to go spy on our target competitor to count how many customers they have in a day. This involved getting there before 10:00am (the line forms an hour before opening time at 11:00am) and staying until they closed the line around 8:30pm. We took turns counting with a little hand counter which made things easier, but still dreadfully boring business. We noticed that there was also another spy hanging about and my business partner went up to chat and found out he is another potential competitor checking things out. We found out some good information though that should help with capacity planning and fleshing out the business plan, and also have a good idea how much they gross per month.

There’s a few other scattered competitors popping up here and there, and some other stores trying to compete. We’ve been checking them out as well, to see what else we are up against. So far in both our opinions and those of other people we’ve asked for feedback from, all the new competitors really really suck. The good news is that we can compete against pretty easily. The bad news is that the consumer will start to associate the product with all the bad copycats. For the latter, we’ll have to do something like give out lots of samples and generate word of mouth to counter the poor quality of other copycats.