Placebo or not Placebo, that is the question..

So you know that Roch is taking part in this Clinical Trial for Lithium Carbonate? We had an interesting conversation about it the other day. We don't know whether he's on lithium or a placebo but he asked me to have a look at the web for side-effects associated with lithium. So I did. The reason he asked was because he feels in general he is not feeling too depressed. Sure he gets low sometimes - but he's sleeping ok and coping well enough. So he wondered whether he was taking lithium and that was what was helping his mood. Maybe so. A symptom of ALS which seems to be almost peculiar to Roch is the tremor. We have discovered that not many ALS sufferers experience this. Now he always had a bit of a shake in his hand - apparently a percentage of the general population does, but the tremor is much worse now and tremor is a side-effect of lithium. There are other side effects which tie in with various physical symptoms he has noticed in the last few months, like that metallic taste in his mouth. It's not proof that he's taking it, but somehow I felt a little cheered by the thought that he might be, and that it might be helping. You've got to take your comfort where you can.