With a Bang or a Whimper?

 

A squawk

My CLIPPERS 2011 ended with more of a whimper - or at least a squawk -  than a bang. On Monday I was booked in at the Day Care Unit at NHNN for an MRI and a meeting with my consultant. On the previous Friday the MRI appointment was pulled forward so I had to be at the unit for 8:45AM. This meant leaving the house earlier than I normally do to get to work! On the first day of my Christmas holiday!! I shouldn't moan too much though - comprehensive monitoring is a good thing.

A Very Merry CLIPPERS Christmas!

 

As we move towards the Christmas holiday period there will be slightly less frequent updates here for a little while - not no update, just not quite the as-regular-as-clock-work twice-a-week schedule that hopefully one or two have got used to. For those who want to keep up to date without the hassle of checking back here, a quick reminder that you can Subscribe By Email from any page and receive the latest updates automatically.

In terms of news, I'm now maintained on 15mg/day Prednisolone and two weeks into Azathioprine which has now moved up to 50mg twice a day. I feel pretty good and everything is pretty normal as far as I can tell. I've just started a weekly schedule of blood tests to monitor the Azathioprine effects on my blood count and liver and kidney function. I thought that was it for 2011 ...

No, I won't look like Arnold Schwarzeneggar ...

... has been my response to several people when they heard I was taking steroids.

So let's deal with the biggest source of confusion right away.

• Body-builders and people who want to build muscle-mass take anabolic steroids.
• People with inflammatory conditions including CLIPPERS take corticosteroids.

It turns out taking corticosteroids can result in weight gain but mostly as fat around the face, neck and stomach, which would probably make me look even less like Arnold Schwarzneggar. On the plus side I'm unlikely to suffer from "Roid Rage" or testicular atrophy either. Phew.

WE Ask The Questions

Now that I've got over my acute CLIPPERS symptoms and having hit a stable patch supported by various pills there's been some more time for reflection. That is reflection on the state of CLIPPERS rather than the reflection of a few months ago which without, wanting to be melodramatic, was more focussed on questions like "Will I make it as far as Christmas?".

Thanks Sis!

Snapshot of a card I recently received.
http://www.edwardmonkton.com/
http://www.reallygood.uk.com/

Read other articles in this series at Living With CLIPPERS.


Living With CLIPPERS by Bill Crum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.