After months of daily Prednisone, my doctors agreed that it is probably not working for me. Anything less than 50mg a day and symptoms get worse. The problem is that at these doses, the side effects are just stupid. Between the heart thing, a couple bouts of bronchitis, massive bruises on my legs and general 'roid craziness, I think I'm ready to be done with this stuff.
But, before I can move on to the next try, which will be TNF drugs that are usually used for Rheumatoid Arthritis, we need more tests.
The first one was a bone density scan. I had one a year ago when we first tried the Prednisone and at that time it was fine. This one, not so much. My bone denisty has decreased enough that they call it "significant" and diagnose me as "osteopenic" which can lead up to osteoporosis. The solution? more drugs! At my next appointment we'll discuss what kind of bone-building medication to start and what kind of super-calcium/vitamin D supplement I need to go on. The other recommendation is regular exercise, which is not an issue, since I'm already doing that, but it does give me more incentive to do that walking and weight lifting. I don't plan to break a hip!
The second test was a new CT scan, for which I'm still waiting on the results. My plan is that this report will say "Oh everything looks good, the Prednisone started the job and the TNF drugs will just finish it up and you'll soon be in remission!" That's my plan anyway.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment