The Good Professor

Had my first follow up appointment with my rheumotologist on Friday - a few days more than 4 weeks after my discharge from hospital.

Last week I described my ups and downs attempting to wean off the cortisone, well this week was the same. After my brief return to 15mgs for 3 days (I was on 20mgs when I left hospital) and subsequent reduction to 10mgs, every day became increasingly more painful than the day before. By Friday I was again getting close to the end of my tether, so a visit to the Good Professor was indeed timely.

Anecdote and mere feelings aside - the science (read blood tests) revealed that whilst I was improving, the improvement wasn't keeping pace with the weaning. I kind of already knew that but it is good to have corroboration - it ain't just in my head. For the record, the main inflammatory marker had dropped from 81 on the day I left hospital to 60. NB normal range is 0 to 10. 5 days before hospital I was 225 and I maxed out at 440 the morning after I went into hospital.

Anyhoo - the upshot of it all is, that the 15mgs has been restored for a full 7 days and then a gentler weaning using 2.5mg steps down instead of the previously bigger 5mg jumps. The Sulfasalazine dose has also been increased to 1.5gms morning and night.

As I've discovered, it takes a couple of days for both increases and decreases to have an effect, so it has only been today that the pain has settled to a manageable discomfort. Mostly it is more a recognition of impaired mobility than actual pain. Of course moving the wrong way, sitting in the one position for too long, or walking for too long still reminds me that the hurty bits are still hurty. But this is a whole lot better than most of the last 2-3 weeks and it is amazing how much lighter I feel mentally as a result.

Speaking of lighter - I dipped below 96kgs through last week. Probably my muscles atrophying but at least I'm not putting on weight during this period of forced inactivity.

All good :)