Another Drug Bites The Dust

Here I am down to ZERO on the prednisone. Yes, ZERO. Can you hear me shouting from the roof tops? What a feat for me. It has been seven long years on the prednisone roller coaster ride but I am finally at the end of the ride. I am hoping and praying I am able to stay here for the rest of my life. If the way I feel is any indication it might not be a long lived dream but if I compare it to my in terms of my mental health I will never go back on them again. My head is beginning to become clearer in a strange sort of way that I am not able to explain. I can't say I wasn't mentally stable on the dreaded roids but I can say that I kind of always felt like I was in some kind of haze in the clouds. Yes, I still have the haze but I just feel like I am thinking a little clearer. Unless this is one of those placebo effects and because I want to get it all together I might think I am thinking clearer? Whatever. All I know is I am off them for now and it feels so good. I also believe the mind is one powerful tool we all have the ability to use to better whatever we are going through.

This will also be my second week without injecting myself with the Methotrexate poison. I saw my Rheumatologist on the first of the month and we talked about stopping it. To be quite honest I was shocked when she looked me straight in the eye and said to try it and see what happens. Yes! I was so happy at that very moment. She warned me if I swell up more, my eye droops, or I am in more pain to start back on it slowly. I heard her say that part, go back on it, but my mind was not listening to that part very well. All I could see was the fireworks going off, life without drugs! Life without getting up in the morning popping a handful of pills. Seriously? Is this really a possibility? In my head all I could think was once I am off this junk I am off for good. It feels so great to write and to say that, believe me especially since the Methotrexate is the one drug that started to make me so sick over a year ago that I had to drop to half the dosage. The headaches and nausea were bringing me down in a really bad way. I believe being sick from a drug is almost worse than living with the actual symptoms. I called the drugs a trip from hell that never ended. I know no one understands that anymore than myself, well except for Rich as he knows me. He is not as excited as I am about stopping all of the drugs. His faith in my non-drug way of thinking is his hell I am sure. He is already telling me I am sleeping much more and he can tell I am not doing as well. Note to self, DO NOT complain what so ever to Rich about any symptoms. Haha! Okay I won't!

I still have one drug to drop which I will do after the wedding this weekend. The best thing about the drugs I take, besides the prednisone, is that I can stop them and not have to taper. The tapering is like a slow hell. You start to taper and only have the goal of being off the drug but in reality it takes months to get off prednisone. You learn to be patient in the process but it is a long and very hard process no one can understand. Your body suffers every time you drop even the smallest amount of prednisone. It is like a slow torture. It takes every bit of a positive mind set to get through it, waiting for your body to slowly adjust. When you take prednisone it shuts off your adrenal glands so your body doesn't produce its own cortisone. Once you have been on them so long you need to wean off them very slowly while your adrenal glands begin to wake back up and make their own natural cortisone once again. Slowly but surely you do it and bam you are off them. I am sure my adrenals are still somewhat asleep because of my fatigue. The fatigue is unbearable at times but you fight through it and do the best you can. What else can you do? It all seems like a game you play with yourself. Drugs? No drugs? I hate this game!

I have begun researching different homeopathic treatments. I have read about tea's, juices, vitamins, and I am sure the list will grow as the research continues. I am going to begin cleaning up the diet and research more on anti inflammatory foods and spices. I am going to begin to walk regularly and get serious about some form of exercise. I believe the yoga is helping to calm me down too and not worry about the stupid crap of life. I am not allowing people to piss me off anymore and avoiding all stressors. Yoga is perfect for this as you teach your mind to be in the moment and cloud out all the junk. The junk will never leave but you have the ability to control how your mind deals with it. You can allow it to eat you alive, which in turn affects you with even more health problems, or you can learn to control the junk and not allow it to control you. Life is so much easier when you have the control over whatever comes your way and you do not allow it to control your life. The journey continues! I'll keep you posted on my success!

Another drug bites the dust and I couldn't be happier!

God Bless!

Dianne