Medications and their contents and discontents
Methylprednisolone dose pack starts with six pills on the first day and then you taper it down to one pill on the sixth day and then quit. It's the sort of thing your body can get accustomed to and you might suffer for it if you take it a while and then stop (Addison's disease being a possible outcome: that is, it's a corticosteroid, and its presence over time might fool your adrenal glands into not making any of your own), and in the long-term it has heavy side effects like possible psychosis and immune suppression. So if you're going to use it, you want to get in there, bonk the condition hard, and then get out again, but not too fast, because your body needs some time in order to get the signal that it really was supposed to keep on making steroids of its own.
This is the second time I have done a methylprednisolone dose pack. I am amazed at how well it works, and highly regretful that it has the heavy side effects and dangers, because dang, the first three days are really, really good. Let me count the ways! First, the coughing that I took it for subsided to almost nothing. As opposed to "can't finish a sentence or do a job of work because can't stop, and my clothes are totally flooded with pee from overwhelmed sphincters") Second, my brain. Oh, my brain on methylprednisolone. What I wouldn't give to have a brain like that all the time. Perky, alert, active, focused, imaginative, cheery, did I say focused? And my memory, so nice. Why isn't there a drug that does this and doesn't mess you up? (coffee, for some people, I guess, but it makes me sick) Third -- no pain in my legs! Inflammation is gone, gone, and I can do anything with them.
However, day four and five -- it starts to take a toll on you. No sleep on night three and four. And I just felt kind of like -- while my brain was still pretty good -- a crash was imminent. I am glad to say, on day six, that there has been no crash so far and I slept fine last night. I did not sleep like a baby (sound until waking up screaming for food or play, I guess that means): but I slept like an old lady who can sleep at night until the old bladder goes "help me!" I am still a bit perky and kind of excited about the no leg pain bit.
Research priority: somebody develop a safer form of this drug so I can live on it my whole life.
This is the second time I have done a methylprednisolone dose pack. I am amazed at how well it works, and highly regretful that it has the heavy side effects and dangers, because dang, the first three days are really, really good. Let me count the ways! First, the coughing that I took it for subsided to almost nothing. As opposed to "can't finish a sentence or do a job of work because can't stop, and my clothes are totally flooded with pee from overwhelmed sphincters") Second, my brain. Oh, my brain on methylprednisolone. What I wouldn't give to have a brain like that all the time. Perky, alert, active, focused, imaginative, cheery, did I say focused? And my memory, so nice. Why isn't there a drug that does this and doesn't mess you up? (coffee, for some people, I guess, but it makes me sick) Third -- no pain in my legs! Inflammation is gone, gone, and I can do anything with them.
However, day four and five -- it starts to take a toll on you. No sleep on night three and four. And I just felt kind of like -- while my brain was still pretty good -- a crash was imminent. I am glad to say, on day six, that there has been no crash so far and I slept fine last night. I did not sleep like a baby (sound until waking up screaming for food or play, I guess that means): but I slept like an old lady who can sleep at night until the old bladder goes "help me!" I am still a bit perky and kind of excited about the no leg pain bit.
Research priority: somebody develop a safer form of this drug so I can live on it my whole life.