I guess I might've spoken too soon about my Lupus settling down. Within the past couple of months I found myself battling more issues. The latest being muscle weakness. I'm not talking about just a little muscle weakness but the kind that like when doing a load of laundry, I can't hold my own weight when standing up type of weakness.  Climbing the stairs is like climbing a mountain.


Walking the two city blocks to work everyday has been difficult to say the least. I haven't been able to go grocery shopping or run any errands. But I thank God everyday for my husband who has picked up my slack and to my coworkers who have given me rides to our parking garage and picked up some lunch for me so that I didn't have to push myself over my limit.

I took a little break from blogging for a couple of reasons. One, because of this muscle weakness, it was difficult to even type on the computer. Two, I didn't want to bring any negativity to this blog. Then as I thought about it, my blog is about living with lupus. What kind of blog would it be if everything was all rosy and peachy when we all know that Lupus isn't always like that? 

So here goes....

I don't know what the reason is for this muscle weakness. Could it be another overlapping disease (i.e., polymyositis)? Or could it be a side effect of the medication(s) I am on? Possibly both? Well, I went to my rheumatologist and had some blood tests performed, including one called CPK. This tests for any muscle issues. Fortunately, mine came back negative. Unfortunately, I'm still experiencing muscle weakness. I found out that Plaquenil and Prednisone can cause muscle weakness so my doctor had me lower my Plaquenil dosage to 1 pill a day. After three weeks of no improvement, my doctor and I decided to see if Prednisone will help. I'm now on 10mg a day for 2 weeks then I see him to discuss my progress. I'm noticing a very slight improvement after just 3 days of taking it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed in hopes that this steroid treatment is going to work. My husband and I even invested in a new treadmill so I can build up some muscle strength. It's getting delivered today so I'm very excited to start! I have some really fun events planned in the next couple of weeks and it would be nice to be able to function for them.
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