Current Medications
When I was admitted to the hospital, I started out with 3 days of Solumedrol IV treatments.
Upon discharge, I started on my daily drug routine:
Daily:
50mg Prednisone. This drug is quite potent so I take several other medications to counteract the side-effects: 1 mg Folic Acid, 1000 mg Calcium Carbonate (and then another 500 mg found in food such as milk and yogurt, that 1500 mg is just to counteract the calcium leaching effect of the steroids), and 1000 UI Vitamin D.
Saturdays, I add 15 mg of Methotrexate to the mix.
As far as side-effects go, there are a few annoying ones. The prednisone stimulates the release of amino acids. These aminos then stimulate hunger by hitting the saiety centre of the brain (the part that tells you if you’re hungry or not). This makes you feel hungry all the time. It also increases water retention and makes you gain weight.
These medications also cause my mind to race at times and cause some really messed up dreams. It happens quite frequently that I’m up at 4 in the morning trying to name all the US states (or something equally random) or that I have a very vivid nightmare that causes me to shake myself awake.
Edit: As of February 13th, my rheumatologist dropped by dosage by 5 mg of Prednisone per day. This was dropped again on February 23rd. I am now down to 40 mg of Prednisone daily.
Edit2: March 13th, Prednisone dosage is dropped to 30 mg daily. This will drop every week by 5 mg unti April 3rd at which point I’ll stay at 15 mg. Rheumatologist wanted to increase Methotrexate dosage, but is holding off on increasing it until hearing from another specialist in Halifax.
Edit3: March 25th, Prednisone dosage will be down to 20mg daily on Friday. Adding 2 Omega-3 softgel capsules containing DHA and EPA a day.
