In honor of lupus awareness month, today's topic is the drug almost all of us with lupus are faced with having to take: prednisone.
Or as some of us pred-vets call it, dreadnisone.
It is used for everything- rashes, asthma, sarcoidosis, inflammation of any kind.
If they don't know what to do, throw prednisone at it. And it often works.
The problem is the side effects. And side effects seems like such a dainty word for things like osteoporosis, cataracts, diabetes, hair loss, obesity- is it really just a "side effect" when it can be classified as a disease?
Yes, prednisone saved my life. But if I had stayed on it, I would have ended up with even more health problems.
But what I really want to know is this:
Why, when my cat and I were both on prednisone (he had a flea allergy)- why, I want to know, was his cherry-flavored while mine tasted like Ajax? Discuss amongst yourselves, and sing along to the prednisone song:
Or as some of us pred-vets call it, dreadnisone.
It is used for everything- rashes, asthma, sarcoidosis, inflammation of any kind.
If they don't know what to do, throw prednisone at it. And it often works.
The problem is the side effects. And side effects seems like such a dainty word for things like osteoporosis, cataracts, diabetes, hair loss, obesity- is it really just a "side effect" when it can be classified as a disease?
Yes, prednisone saved my life. But if I had stayed on it, I would have ended up with even more health problems.
But what I really want to know is this:
Why, when my cat and I were both on prednisone (he had a flea allergy)- why, I want to know, was his cherry-flavored while mine tasted like Ajax? Discuss amongst yourselves, and sing along to the prednisone song:
3 comments:
Carla,
This was great! Did I hear insomnia as one of the side affects? I didn't realize it was the prednisone doing it. I have a love/hate relationship with prednisone. I love it for making me feel better, and I hate what it is doing to me!
Hi Della!
Yes, indeed, insomnia is one of the effects.
It's a powerful drug. They use it because it works.
And we try to find ways to wean off of it because of all the side effects.
I've tried placquenil, cellcept, and lots of natural therapies to stay off of it. Over the course of 20 years with lupus, I've never been on prednisone for more than 10 months at a time.
Once I was on attivan to help me sleep because of the prednisone. then i had to wean off both of them! :)
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