BYE BYE Prednisone

I was approved to receive ACTH, acthar, a drug that will stimulate my pituitary gland to activate my own adrenal glands to produce cortisol. This drug will replace prednisone. I will be keeping the high dose cellcept and onward we go on a new pharma drug adventure.

Since I was on prednisone, and it wasn't working I had to get off it, so the tapering began. At first I thought my doctor was nuts. 2 week taper?
Really?
50 mg to nothing in 2 weeks?
And my mind kept going and going on how I was going to blow up again, feel miserable and end up in the hospital for acute renal failure with an IV and 3 bags of solumedrol hooked up to me.
Twice was enough.

Well, I was totally wrong and pleasantly surprised by my lab results after I began my taper. I was also pleasantly surprised by my increase in energy, appetite, vision, mood, overall better feeling. My albumin went up and protein went down.
Whaa?

Yes. I improved! And tapering off prednisone was the only difference I made. It was doing more harm than good. I believe that my liver was stressed and my body was experience steroid toxicity. I guess there is a term for that, I think most people end up experiencing it as it is probably not normal to have that much cortisol in the body for that long. 

I am now at 15mg prednisone and ACTH will replace prednisone completely after tomorrow's last dose of 15mg.


So long prednisone. I will not miss you. The mood swings, protruding belly, bulging eyes, thinning hair, the fat cheeks, the acne & pimples, the hairgrowth on my back, forehead, upper lip and jawline. Wow, you really wanted to turn me into a fat, balding prepubescent man. And those are just the vain side effects. I hope the gastritis, anemia, high blood pressure, will go too.

I really hope my own synthesis of cortisol is more kind to me, as I imagine it will be. There is nothing more magical and miraculous than the complexity of human chemicals. I imagine that prednisone can only mimic so much of what real human cortisol can be capable of... at least I hope.

I can always hope for the best.