@rosemarya If you do mention it and find out that these medications do not have negative long-term effects I would be very interested in hearing that. I just did some googling and although I know I saw some negatives about being on them for a long time (for us, forever) I couldn't find that now. Frankly, if there are no long-term negative effects I will go back to taking it with food, that would be way easier. The only short-term effects I have had are the same with both doses, but that makes sense because the higher dose does not get metabolized into your system as much.

I did not see any mention on the Mayo link that you provided about long-term effects at all.

I have had a number of messages to the first line of communication recently so I don't want to ask her this, plus, although I think she is very intelligent, I don't think she is really good at this! I probably mentioned before, after I started taking it without food and being able to decrease my dose I mentioned something to her about the effect of taking it with food vs without. She said that was not the reason that the number changed. She intercepts all of the portal messages so she would be the one who would respond.
JK