I knew I was in for it last week having three different doctors’ appointments.
I’ve gained weight.
I’m not happy about the situation, but I am aware of it.
And it’s unnecessary to repeat this fact. I know it, I’m trying to deal with it, and I
don’t think it takes years of medical school to be able to “diagnose”
that. It is what it is.
It’s a known fact that carrying extra weight around is not
good for arthritis, and yet, we get put on medications that are known to cause
weight gain, Prednisone being the main culprit.
(And to be clear, we are talking about a 10-pound weight
gain compared to my normal weight and a 15-pound weight gain compared to my
ideal weight. But for a person who
normally weighs right about 100 pounds, 10 pounds looks and feels like a lot,
at least to me).
For me, 5 mg of Prednisone does nothing. 20 mg makes me crazy, and apparently so does
10 mg.
Honestly, I really thought that if I was on less than 20 mg
a day, I wouldn’t have any problems.
But lately, I’m stressed, anxious, and emotionally volatile
to a degree I have not been before.
I really thought I was about to lose it. I thought to myself, “This is what happens
when graduate students are writing dissertations and they go nuts. This is how it feels because it’s happening
to me.”
And I was really convinced that the world was going to end
at any moment. I feel like time has
gotten away from me and there isn’t enough time to do everything that needs to
be done.
I wasn’t sleeping. In
a month, I could count three days in which I actually felt like I had
restorative sleep. And my brain never
shuts off.
I know it’s something that not everyone likes to talk about,
but I will admit that a significant member of my medical team is my psychiatrist. Very early on in my illness experience, I
developed severe anxiety. The decision
to go on yet another medication was not an easy one, but was definitely
necessary for me.
So last week, I went to my psychiatrist and we upped my dose
of anxiety meds.
But my psychiatrist also mentioned that all of the things I
was telling her – unmitigated weight gain, my anxiety and emotionality, and my
inability to sleep, are all new symptoms since I saw her three or four months
ago.
And since that time, the main thing that had changed was
that I had started back on daily Prednisone.
It was like being hit over the head with a frying pan. Everything makes so much sense now. Of course it’s mainly the Prednisone. Why didn’t I think of that before?
Prior to that, over the last few years I would say, I have
been on Prednisone on an “as needed” basis, which for me meant once about every
three or four months.
Because I hate the dreaded P with a Passion. And if the last few months are any
indication, I know why I hate it. It
dulls my pain, but it increases things you don’t want increased.
And as I learned when I saw my rheumatologist last week,
while Prednisone is good for pain management, it is bad for symptom
management. And my RA has started to
come back with a vengeance.
For the first time, my rheumatologist admitted to me that he
doesn’t think long-term Prednisone is a sustainable option for me.
I couldn’t agree more.
It’s not a sustainable option for my waistline, my anxiety, my sleep
schedule, my boyfriend, or my life in general.
So right now I am tapering down on the Prednisone and I will
be starting Rituxan at the beginning of March.
This new treatment option is scary, I must admit, but it would be great
if it works. I’ll of course be writing
about this a lot more in the weeks and months to come, but for now, I’m glad I
have a scapegoat that is so easy to blame for some of my behavior over the last
few months.
Although in some ways, it kind of feels like a copout. Okay, let’s blame the Prednisone. But on the other hand, it really does make
sense.
I just truly haven’t felt like myself and everything has
felt like too much. It has really been a
struggle to keep it together.
I guess I took for granted that since I was feeling
relatively okay physically, it didn’t matter how I felt mentally. Or that since the Prednisone was doing what
it was supposed to do for the pain, it didn’t matter if it was throwing all of
these other things off.
And I’m glad that someone on my medical team was able to
pinpoint this, almost instantaneously.
But I can’t help but wonder: If I suddenly lose my filter,
and start saying whatever comes into my head, can I blame that on the
prednisone, too?
Yes, I love that idea... blame it on the prednisone! **)
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head with this one. I like the idea of blaming it on the Prednisone too! I'm actually dealing with the anxiety/weight gain as well since I've been on 20mg of P for the last 6 months. I've never felt so "off" being so anxiety ridden. Thanks for posting this!
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