Dr.PathRoch said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

Careful with the causal language. Two things moving together in a period when five things changed is not a mechanism, and stating it as one makes the thread less useful to somebody reading it later.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

Dr.PathRoch said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

Correct, and worth adding that it is reversible. Nothing being described here is a one-way door, which changes how cautious it is reasonable to be.

Dr.PathRoch said:

The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the…

Saving this. It is the first explanation that did not require me to already understand it. Adding it to my notes with a link back to this thread.

Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. The version of this that has an answer is narrower than the version being asked. Narrow it and it becomes tractable; leave it broad and the thread will produce nine confident and incompatible replies.

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Closing this out: the trough rather than the peak explains the pattern I was seeing on day six, which I had been blaming on the vial.