Week 2 - Steroid Withdrawal!
Current prednisolone dose: 25mg!!
Current weight: 325.8lbs (-3.8lbs!)
Wooooo! So now that I'm actively trying to get down on my steroids I'm also going to try and properly lose some of the weight I've gained - rather than just maintaining, which was my aim during my 4 month xolair trial.
Week 1 has seen success in both!
Especially surprised I managed to lose any weight this week as last weekend saw me overindulge in the food department massively! I was helping out with some post-graduate medical exams which meant I got to go to the examiners dinner (extremely fancy food!!) and we were well supplied with snacks throughout the day (7:45 till 5:30) so I ate a lot of biscuits... I've also struggled quite a bit with fatigue from lowering my prednisolone dose this week so have spent a lot of it in bed feeling sorry for myself, which means, you guessed it! MORE SNACKS.
But without a doubt the thing I'm most excited about is the success I've had in reducing my steroid dose. I'm currently on day 2 of 25mg and still feeling stable lung wise so hopefully I should be able to turn up for my xolair injection on monday having already got to and maintained my new target dose! Even the fact that I'm on day 2 and still fine is impressive, I've only managed to get down to 25mg for a total of 2 days since February and within 24 hours I've either had to increase my dose again or been back in hospital! Fingers crossed this means I can get my dose even lower before any problems start!
Oh god though the steroid withdrawal hit me hard this week. At first I couldn't really work out why it would have such a dramatic effect going from 35mg to 30mg even with my body being so used to 35+. THEN I realised that I had gone from 60mg to 30mg in the space of 3 days! (oops!!!) Which explained things a bit more.
It did really emphasise how important it is to be careful when reducing medication like steroids that your body becomes dependent on. While my chest has been fine, I went from happily walking a mile or so on the flat without any issues to only being able to manage a few hundred metres without any pain. I also really did not appreciate how tired I would be! The first morning I woke up with the symptoms I honestly thought I was coming down with the flu (and I've had flu twice so know what I'm looking out for!) before realising it was steroid related.
But I made it through and while I'm not feeling 100% over them yet (it can take a few weeks apparently) I'm at least able to function again!
In terms of working in healthcare in the future though, its really taught me the importance of making sure patients have a nice, clear and SAFE plan for reducing medication over time. Its also important to give them ideas of what to look out for in terms of withdrawal and what to do about it - I chose to crawl into bed and ride out the symptoms, but I potentially should have re-increased the steroids - I have no way of knowing as I wasn't told!
So this week has been a learning experience if nothing else! And as far as I'm concerned, a great success!
Current weight: 325.8lbs (-3.8lbs!)
Wooooo! So now that I'm actively trying to get down on my steroids I'm also going to try and properly lose some of the weight I've gained - rather than just maintaining, which was my aim during my 4 month xolair trial.
Week 1 has seen success in both!
Especially surprised I managed to lose any weight this week as last weekend saw me overindulge in the food department massively! I was helping out with some post-graduate medical exams which meant I got to go to the examiners dinner (extremely fancy food!!) and we were well supplied with snacks throughout the day (7:45 till 5:30) so I ate a lot of biscuits... I've also struggled quite a bit with fatigue from lowering my prednisolone dose this week so have spent a lot of it in bed feeling sorry for myself, which means, you guessed it! MORE SNACKS.
But without a doubt the thing I'm most excited about is the success I've had in reducing my steroid dose. I'm currently on day 2 of 25mg and still feeling stable lung wise so hopefully I should be able to turn up for my xolair injection on monday having already got to and maintained my new target dose! Even the fact that I'm on day 2 and still fine is impressive, I've only managed to get down to 25mg for a total of 2 days since February and within 24 hours I've either had to increase my dose again or been back in hospital! Fingers crossed this means I can get my dose even lower before any problems start!
Oh god though the steroid withdrawal hit me hard this week. At first I couldn't really work out why it would have such a dramatic effect going from 35mg to 30mg even with my body being so used to 35+. THEN I realised that I had gone from 60mg to 30mg in the space of 3 days! (oops!!!) Which explained things a bit more.
It did really emphasise how important it is to be careful when reducing medication like steroids that your body becomes dependent on. While my chest has been fine, I went from happily walking a mile or so on the flat without any issues to only being able to manage a few hundred metres without any pain. I also really did not appreciate how tired I would be! The first morning I woke up with the symptoms I honestly thought I was coming down with the flu (and I've had flu twice so know what I'm looking out for!) before realising it was steroid related.
But I made it through and while I'm not feeling 100% over them yet (it can take a few weeks apparently) I'm at least able to function again!
In terms of working in healthcare in the future though, its really taught me the importance of making sure patients have a nice, clear and SAFE plan for reducing medication over time. Its also important to give them ideas of what to look out for in terms of withdrawal and what to do about it - I chose to crawl into bed and ride out the symptoms, but I potentially should have re-increased the steroids - I have no way of knowing as I wasn't told!
So this week has been a learning experience if nothing else! And as far as I'm concerned, a great success!
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