On my last appointment with my Nephrologist, I finally got the OK to start weaning off my Prednisone. He wanted me to wean off slowly....1mg a week until I'm no longer on Prednisone at all. The idea of this is a bittersweet thing for me. For one, I've been anxious to get off of it after being on 20mg a day for the last six months. Who wouldn't be? The side effects of Prednisone are crazy sometimes. However, secondly, every time I wean off too fast, I start to flare again. I always worry if my body is going to accept not being on as much Prednisone. Lastly, in the last 6 years, I've never been able to get off of Prednisone at all without flaring again. Needless to say, I'm very nervous about it.

I'm only down to 16mg this week but I could already feel the effects of it. The first couple of days after weaning down, I start to get really tired. The energy is just depleted from my body. I start to feel "not well" and my joints begin to swell and hurt, especially my knees. It's not the best feeling when I'm trying to manage a department at work and have to keep up at home...with a new puppy.The mornings are the hardest being so tired and trying to get ready for the day. It takes me forever to get moving.  The first few days makes me feel "foggy" too. At work, I've been trying to offset this by writing everything on Post-It Notes so that I don't forget anything. This has actually been a habit for me for the last few years and has worked quite well.

There have been lots of changes at work. The firm has let a few people go and others have been shifted to other departments. I lost two people in my department and received one new one. I started training my new employee this week. Of course, it lands on the day after I started weaning down, right? Needless to say, it was a little tough to train when I wasn't feeling well and would have some "foggy" moments. I also have good reason to believe that our insurance may be changing. I have great insurance now where I have the option of seeing any physician I like. Because of this, I feel I have some great doctors. But now, I may be losing some of them as they only take certain insurances. Well, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Other stresses have been making it difficult for me to deal with the weaning off too. I had a difficult time with the new puppy last night. I had just come home from a hard day at work to a 12 week old puppy that had so much energy that she didn't know what to do with herself. Then there's me that had zero energy and just wanted to eat dinner and go to bed. Playing fetch with her helps but taking her for a walk wasn't an option since it had been raining and thundering like crazy the last couple of days. Thank goodness that my husband was home to be able to play with her too for a little bit. I take her to puppy classes every Wednesday so at there's at least one day a week she gets tired out. Another good thing is that she sleeps through the night now and that means no more broken sleep for me.

One good thing about being so tired with everything going on is that I no longer have to rely on taking a sleeping aid (Ambien) to go to sleep and stay asleep anymore. I'm so very happy about that because I've been wanting to stop taking it for so long.

Weaning off of Prednisone isn't easy but I'm hoping to be able to manage it well enough to keep living a "normal" life.
1 Response
  1. Lori A Says:

    I think until your puppy gets bigger you may want to try and find a young person in your neighborhood who can have some time to play with your baby. Or if your yard is fenced in they have this wonderful thing that throws a ball for you, the dog gets it brings it back and puts it into the machine again. You can load it with several balls at a time. They pick up this game quite easily about reloading it. This will wear out your baby and you'll have a sleepy happy puppy. If you feel like you're coming down off of the prednisone too fast, say something to your doctor. You alone know your body. I wish you the best. I was say "try and relax" but we both know that sometimes that simply isn't possible.


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