Hi,
I got up to the full dose and stayed there for 10 days. But with each day, my corneas began to burn so intensely that my eyes involuntarily closed. The pain was too intense to tolerate, so I stopped, and the pain then subsided and I could open my eyes again.
I’m sorry to hear about the rash. You’re not the only one to have experienced that problem, although yours is worse than others I’ve heard about.
Early last year I started having a rash above the inside right ankle. A touch of cortisone will calm it down for a week or two, but it comes back. I don’t know for sure that this is from the niacin, but two other people I have introduced to niacin have also noted a rash. One had a rash on her chest and back. She stopped niacin for a week, the rash went away, and then she restarted with niacin and the rash still there but tolerable. Another had a rash on her back which went away when she applied some sort of antibiotic cream.
I’ve posed a question about this in the private niacin forum on Telegram. I’ll let you know if others have found a solution.