I've stopped taking Savella and Imuran. The good news is that my fatigue/dragginess/wonky feeling is gone! I can get stuff done again, I am so relieved!
The bad news is that the pain is considerably worse. Getting up in the morning is a beast, ow. I am still taking the prednisone and advil, so once those kick in I feel ok, but then again in the evening the pain comes back.
I feel OK about this trade-off though. I can work through the pain, and there are meds I can take to help with the pain. The fatigue felt unfixable and it was miserable not being able to get off the couch for the past few months. Now I even have enough energy to cook dinner :)
One interesting thing is now that the other drugs are out of my system and the side effects of those drugs are gone, now the side effects of the prednisone are coming back. So I'm hungry hungry and talking a mile a minute again.
Other than what's mentioned above, the main other annoying symptom I have is ITCHING. Two kinds - one is just a general itchiness on my back and stomach - annoying. And the other feels like there is a bug crawling on my arm...really, I SWEAR there is a bug on my arm!!! -- but there's not. Ummm, ANNOYING!!
ta for now.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
just an update
so, I hope nobody is holding their breath for blog updates...sometimes I'm in the mood to post, sometimes, I'm just not...
anyway, it's been a long summer, and I'm glad fall is finally here...the hot weather just makes things oh so much more complicated, and not being able to go out in the sun also really stinks in the summertime (love hearing about everybody's fun trips to the beach :(
so, I got quite sick last June, but started taking Imuran which helped clear up my awful skin rash and helped with some other symptoms as well. I had to cut the dosage in half because it was screwing up my liver and making me quite nauseus (and acid reflux), but it seemed to do what we needed in terms of the rash and the half dose cut down on a lot of the side effects.
About a month and a half ago, I started taking Savella, a fibromyalgia drug, to try and help with my aches and pains. Unfortunately, it really didn't help much with the pain, but it did make me feel dizzy/wonky and get chills and just makes me feel kinda blah in general.
I went back to the doctor yesterday, and I'm so pleased that he had me stop taking both the Imuran and the Savella. I was going to ask to stop with the Savella, because the side effects were very annoying and it wasn't helping, so I'm glad he suggested it. And he felt that the Imuran has done its thing, we're going to keep an eye on the rash and I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't come back.
So that's the update for today. I'm still on a little bit of prednisone (7.5mg) and taking 4-6 advil a day for the pain, but things seem pretty much under control.
I'd rather be taking fewer medications and feel a little bit of pain than taking a bunch of meds that just aren't helping and giving me rotten side effects!
anyway, it's been a long summer, and I'm glad fall is finally here...the hot weather just makes things oh so much more complicated, and not being able to go out in the sun also really stinks in the summertime (love hearing about everybody's fun trips to the beach :(
so, I got quite sick last June, but started taking Imuran which helped clear up my awful skin rash and helped with some other symptoms as well. I had to cut the dosage in half because it was screwing up my liver and making me quite nauseus (and acid reflux), but it seemed to do what we needed in terms of the rash and the half dose cut down on a lot of the side effects.
About a month and a half ago, I started taking Savella, a fibromyalgia drug, to try and help with my aches and pains. Unfortunately, it really didn't help much with the pain, but it did make me feel dizzy/wonky and get chills and just makes me feel kinda blah in general.
I went back to the doctor yesterday, and I'm so pleased that he had me stop taking both the Imuran and the Savella. I was going to ask to stop with the Savella, because the side effects were very annoying and it wasn't helping, so I'm glad he suggested it. And he felt that the Imuran has done its thing, we're going to keep an eye on the rash and I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't come back.
So that's the update for today. I'm still on a little bit of prednisone (7.5mg) and taking 4-6 advil a day for the pain, but things seem pretty much under control.
I'd rather be taking fewer medications and feel a little bit of pain than taking a bunch of meds that just aren't helping and giving me rotten side effects!
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