The first time I took prednisone I swore it would be my last. Even though I had complete relief from both my CD and arthritis symptoms, the "roid rage" it gave me was terrible. I thought my wife was going to leave me, it was so bad. This was just a few months ago, over Christmas.
Fast forward to today. My doc put me on Humira and Imuran toward the end of January. I put off going on the Imuran to see if I could get good results just going with the Humira. After five weeks on the Humira, with little effect, I went ahead and started the Imuran.
I've been out of work since October due to CD, and am very anxious to get back. So as an interim fix, I went back on the prednisone just over a week ago. I am allowed to work once my dose of pred is down to 20 mg per day. I'm hoping that I won't come out of remission at that dose.... hopefully the Humira and/or Imuran will take up the slack by then.
Anyway, the side effects I'm having from the pred this time around are much different. I haven't experienced one episode of moodiness or anger yet (knock on wood). I've been happy, full of energy, and it feels like the pred has knocked 20 years off my old bod; I feel great. Prior to the pred, I could not sleep at night. I just couldn't find a comfortable position. Something always hurt enough to keep me awake. The pred has completely removed all the pain. It feels like I'm floating on a cloud laying in bed now. Nothing hurts. Even the steroid induced insomnia hasn't been unbearable, because I'm enjoying just laying on the bed without hurting, sleeping or not.
The pred has made me realize that some things weren't working correctly, and I didn't even know it...
I have never been able to breathe out of both sides of my nose at once. The pred has reduced swelling in my sinuses that I didn't even know I had. I can now breathe out of both sides all the time. (Now I'm wondering if my frequent URI's were caused by chronic inflammation in my sinuses.) My hands have full dexterity in them now. My joints and muscles don't hurt anymore. And this one is particularly weird: I don't have to get up two or three times in the night to pee anymore. And for the guys... I ddin't even realize that I had started to get an enlarged prostate until I started producing a teenager's stream again (if you know what I mean). Yup, it seems to have even reduced some prostate swelling (my GI had actually informed me of this after my colonoscopy results. PSA test was normal, thankfully). My skin has cleared up, too. I had sebhorriec dermatitis in my eyebrows... gone. Psoriasis on my back.. gone... recurring bacterial foliculitis on my chest... gone. It did all of this for me the first time around, too, it's just that I was too angry to really see it all.
It's like I had this general body inflammation... everything was inflamed. And since the pred has gotten rid of that inflammation, the pain, the terrbile fatigue, and the associated depression are gone.
All of this has me wondering.... is Crohn's disease causing all of these other problems (inflammation all over the body), or do I have some as yet undiagnosed or unknown autoimmune disorder that is causing all of this inflammation, and the CD symptoms are simply part of the potpourri?
Regardless, I'm sure enjoying this (probably temporary) respite. I'm just hoping that Humira in combination with the Imuran will produce results as good as the pred, and that it will last long term.